


It was always you and me

by pleasebekidding



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: I needed Draco as a potions master and Harry in Defence Against the Dark Arts, M/M, No doubt it's been done before but I couldn't find it, first Drarry... be kind?, no death but lbr I am an angst monster so who knows what could happen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2020-12-31 16:15:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 41,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21148559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasebekidding/pseuds/pleasebekidding
Summary: Harry's career as an Auror brings him no joy. And there is only one place that has ever felt like home.In which Narcissa is awesome, people have grown up, and the world is no longer at war.





	1. Chapter 1

Harry muttered a near-silent A_lohamora_ and opened the door to his office. Apparently the climate spell was glitching again; shortly after midnight, and the sun was shining. He closed the blind and the gaslights around the room lit automatically.

On his desk was a small pile of birthday presents.

He sat heavily on the chair behind his desk. Molly had sent a tin of biscuits; she always did, shortbread biscuits in the shape of lion’s heads. He knew the shape of the package the moment he laid eyes on it. Tired as he was, a little sugar might give him the jolt he needed to finish some paperwork, so he unwrapped it and opened the tin. It sang a gentle ‘happy birthday’ and he smiled.

There was a quiet rap on the door.

“Come in,” Harry said, without looking up. When the large, distinguished form of Delilah Shacklebolt came through the door he was instantly alert and on his feet. “Madam,” he said. “I apologise. I didn’t expect to see anyone this late.” He tried in vain to press his hair into submission but it rebelled with all the passion it could muster. She shooed his concern away.

She was dressed, as always, in traditional African garb, gold and red robes which made the blackness of her skin look even richer. Harry hurried to the other side of his desk to pull a chair out for her.

“Is that Molly Weasley’s shortbread I smell?” she asked, ignoring the chair for a moment. “Ah, so it is.” She took a lion, and took her seat, and Harry sat as well — on that side of his desk, since it seemed quite ridiculous to have the head of the Auror Office across a desk from him.

“Happy birthday, Harry,” she said.

“Thank you, Madam Shacklebolt.”

“Thirty, is it?”

“Yes, Madam.”

“How many times must I ask you to call me Delilah?”

“At least once more,” Harry said, with an earnest nod. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“You can take that stick out of your arse,” she said, “and tell me how long you have been working for me.”

It wasn’t a simple question to ask. Madam Shacklebolt had been the head of the Auror Office when Harry had arrived as a first-year apprentice, at nineteen, after belatedly completing his N.E.W.Ts as an eighth-year student at Hogwarts. Two years later he’d been a Junior Auror; and now…

“Nine years,” he said, swallowing a lump in his throat.

He’d seen this coming. A more senior position. More responsibility. They did love trotting him out in front of reporters from time to time to describe the ‘Boy Who Lived’ as the youngest Auror to… well, scratch his arse, it sometimes seemed.

“And for how many of those years have you been entirely miserable, Harry?”

Madam Shacklebolt’s face was serene and kind, and absolutely serious. And Harry wanted to paste a smile on his face, lie through his teeth, and say that every day was a fucking joy and a privilege — but she was, after all, the head of the Auror Office and rather well primed with a bullshit detector that was famous across all of Europe.

“Er,” he said, as eloquent as he’d been at eleven.

Madam Shacklebolt took another biscuit. “You must send Molly my regards, and my compliments,” she said. “And tell me, how do you intend to celebrate your birthday?”

“I didn’t intend to. I’ve been busy. I have more paperwork to catch up on than I could poke my wand at, and —”

Harry slumped in his chair. She had asked him a question.

“Probably eight years,” he said. “I was sure this was what I wanted. I truly was. I worked hard for it, and I know my defensive magic better than anyone else on the team —”

“Well, that was true, once. But you’ve taught them all a great deal.”

“I think, sometimes, that…”

That it had become impossible, by the time he was seventeen, to ever be anything but the Boy Who Lived. His destiny seemed to be set in stone, and he lacked any kind of adult who he may have been able to talk about it with in depth. He had been fighting since before he’d had hair under his arms and it seemed inevitable that he would fight for his entire life. Never mind that it still seemed to be leeching life from him every day, and had done for years.

“You are very, very good at your job, Harry.”

“Thank you, Madam.”

“But if you look inside your heart of hearts, you know you are not an Auror.”

“Madam?”

Was he about to lose his job? No — Harry couldn’t survive without purpose. His pathetic attempts to relax were proof enough of that.

“Kingsley and I had a cousin,” she said, kicking off her shoes and leaning back in her chair. “Guin. She worked at St Mungo’s. She was a good nurse. But as the years went by, she seemed to hollow out. Do you understand what I mean? Do you have any Firewhiskey?”

“In my office?” Harry was too wary of the spot checks to break a rule like that here.

“No matter.” Madam Shacklebolt conjured a bottle and two glasses, and once the bottle had helpfully poured itself into the two glasses they settled into place, one in Madam Shacklebolt’s large, graceful hand, with her golden fingernails and many rings, and one into Harry’s jagged hand, all sinew and scars. “One year she traveled to the countryside and met an old man who grew potion ingredients and raised injured creatures. She moved into his home as his apprentice and she has since then been counted amongst the happiest and best-fulfilled witches I have known in all my days. And my days are many more than you might guess, Harry.”

Harry had long since given up trying to guess how old people were. The more powerful seemed to age incredibly slowly. If Madam Shacklebolt had told him she was a hundred years old, despite the barest hint of crows feet at her eyes Harry would not have batted an eyelid.

“So what are you, Harry? In your heart of hearts. Were you not the Boy Who Lived. Had you not been the one to defeat Voldemort and end the war. Don’t answer too quickly. Just think, and tell me. Where does your heart lie? Where are you happy? Close your eyes.”

He closed his eyes. Happy. Alright, that couldn’t be hard. He was happy at the Burrow, with his chosen family. He was happy flying, but he knew he didn’t want to play Quidditch professionally; he watched Ginny bask in the spotlight and only knew he needed a much quieter place to shine. Where was he happy?

Hogwarts.

“Hogwarts,” he said, with a half-laugh. “I’m sorry, Madam Shacklebolt. Perhaps I need a holiday. I could spend some time at the seaside; I have friends who…”

She handed him an envelope. She handed it over with such gravity that Harry felt his bones harden and his eyes widen. He recognised the handwriting on the front, though he couldn’t place it, and when he turned it over to see the seal on the back — the heavy, ornate ‘H’ set into the wax — his heart thumped in his chest.

It seemed like a letter he should open in private, but it also seemed as though Madam Shacklebolt knew what the letter said, and was waiting for him to read it. He broke the seal, and slipped the piece of parchment out, open it carefully.

_Dear Mr Potter_,

it read. Harry glanced at Madam Shacklebolt, who nodded serenely.

_I do hope this letter finds you well, but not so well that you are inclined to dismiss the contents. You may be aware that for some many years, now, the seemingly cursed post of Defence Against the Dark Arts appears to have shrugged off its mantle. For thirteen lucky years (please do take a moment to chuckle at the irony, have you the urge) the post has remained with your eighth-year tutor, Professor Emrys Whitecandle. _

_Professor Whitecandle is approaching his one-hundred and twentieth birthday, and he has decided to retire to the countryside and enjoy the company of his great and great-great-grandchildren until his eventual demise. I assure you these are his words and not mine. _

_I understand that your career as an Auror has been fulfilling and that your work is of an exemplary standard, but I wonder if you would consider returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to take up the post of Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts._

_Please return your answer no later than, shall we say, tomorrow._

_Yours most sincerely, _

_Minerva McGonagall _

_Headmaster_

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

Harry sat dumbfounded, staring at the words on the page for a long time.

The last time — the _very_ last time that Harry had laid eyes on Hogwarts was the day that he sat the last of his N.E.W.Ts. That year had been painful, and exhausting, and the castle had not been what it was. The number of students was half what it had been at its prime and there was mourning on all sides. Some animosities had grown and others had vanished. Harry had struggled with nightmares and flashbacks and the lingering maladies sometimes suffered by those who had experienced the effects of hundreds of curses and hexes and that annoying little death he’d experienced.

Before that, though?

It had been the first home he’d ever known.

“Madam Shacklebolt,” Harry said, slowly, cautiously.

“Delilah,” she insisted gently.

“Delilah. I have been offered a post as Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

“You certainly have, dear boy.” He might have bristled at the endearment from almost anyone else but Madam Shacklebolt used it on everyone south of sixty.

“I would like to accept the position, if you will accept my resignation.”

She leaned across the space and took his head in her great hands. “Two weeks notice. And rather than work them, you should take some of the leave you are owed. You will need supplies, and time to move to the castle. It is time to go, _Professor_ Potter.”

Harry closed his eyes as Madam Shacklebolt kissed his forehead.

She was right; it was time to go.

Harry spent one night at number 12, Grimmauld Place before he headed for Hogwarts.

It was, for all intents and purposes, a birthday party, and it was a fine evening indeed. Ron and Hermione came, Hermione heavy with her second pregnancy and Ron loudly proclaiming that she would be the youngest ever Minister of Magic by the time the kid could roll onto its belly. Neville, who had offered to help Harry bring his things to Hogwarts — he had taken over as Professor of Herbology eight years prior. Ginny couldn’t make it. As the Captain of the Hollyhead Harpies she was too close to finals to take time off, but she did make an appearance in the fireplace, to everyone’s delight. Luna, who had taken over as the editor-in-chief of the Quibbler (circulation had grown rather a lot since she had proven the existence of various previously denied species).

More friends than Harry could count. More than he wanted to count. Counting those present meant counting those who had died. One of the many reasons Harry never liked to celebrate his birthday. Somehow, celebrating it several days late made the hurt less.

Around three in the morning, when most people had gone home (by apparition or by floo, for the most part), and those who were staying were tucked up fast asleep, Harry climbed through the window in the attic and sat on the roof.

“Oh, I… Harry. I can’t — oh, this wretched bump! Help me, would you?” Hermione was trying to climb through the window, gravid and lovely, and Harry avoided making a crass comment about how the roof may not hold her. He only laughed, as he helped her settle.

“_Ooph_. I remember this being a lot easier when I was seventeen,” she grumbled, as she settled her arms around her belly. “I didn’t want to say in front of everyone, Harry. But the house looks lovely.”

Harry’s throat ached. “I didn’t want to change it,” he admitted. “For a long time, because Sirius —”

“But the way it was, that was never his home, Harry. _You_ were his home. He would be glad to see that awful family tree gone from the wall. And how you’ve brought in the light. Not the House of Black, not any more. The House of Potter.”

Harry slung an arm around her shoulders. The night was warm even now, and they were comfortable.

“I think it’s wonderful,” she said, quietly. “That you’re going to teach. I keep thinking about Dumbledore’s Army. How we learned more from you then than we’d ever learned in class — though Professor Lupin did a good job,” she finished, quietly. Another ache.

They were silent for a while.

“Hermione,” Harry said, as if he was planning to ask something — no. Bollocks. _Because_ he was planning to say something. _Ask_ something. But he suddenly didn’t want the answer.

Hermione waited, and then poked him in the ribs with a very stern finger. “Go on. You’ve been in your head all night, Harry. And don’t try to tell me you didn’t love our gift. You do know how rare a foe-glass is, don’t you?”

“No, I love it,” Harry said. Mad-Eye Mooney’s foe glass didn’t work well anymore, occluded with white fog. “It’s not — I just mean. Do you think we’re broken?”

Hermione froze, and turned her head.

“I just mean — do you think, when someone’s survived what we’ve survived, that there’s any chance they can be normal one day? That there will ever be a choice that isn’t influenced by the war? Because I’ve tried. And I don’t think so. I don’t think I can be.”

To her credit, Hermione didn’t rush to comfort. Harry supposed that was why he’d asked her, and not Ron. She sat silent for a long time, and then twitched strangely. She grabbed Harry’s hand, and pressed it to her stomach. Harry was alarmed, momentarily, until he felt the kick under his hand, and then his face split into a grin.

“It’s amazing,” she said. “Knowing she’s in there. She has brown skin, like me, a little lighter. And red hair, but it’s darker than the Weasleys’. She likes music. And I love her, and I’d lay my life down for her, and I think every mother says that, but I know I can and will if I have to because I have stepped in front of hexes and curses and even _blades_ for the people I love.”

Harry heard most of it; but mostly, he was marvelling at the fluttering under his hand.

“No one escapes anything, Harry,” Hermione said. “Least of all war. But that doesn’t mean that things are terrible. We learned, we grew, and we survived. Maybe we won’t ever be the sort of people who trip light-heartedly through life, but maybe — maybe _she_ will be. And Harry — we’re sure as fuck not _broken_.”

So maybe _they_ weren’t broken. Didn’t mean _he_ wasn’t.

Hermione leaned heavily against his side for a good long time, and then abruptly sat up. “What are you going to do with Kreacher?”

“I’ve tried to free him. If I offer him clothes he runs away and sulks for weeks. I’m barely here — he keeps it clean, mutters about his Mistress… I’ll ask him if he wants to come with me, but I expect he’ll just insist on staying here. He’s over three hundred years old, Hermione, he’s not about to change his ways. But... every year he takes flowers to Dobby’s grave. I expect that’s the most character growth I’ll ever see. And honestly — that seems like a lot.”

When Hermione was curled up in bed with Ron, in one of the newly-decorated guest bedrooms which was anything but dark, Harry lay awake and turned it all over in his brain. It did seem like a bit much, some days. His childhood had been a bit rubbish. (More than a bit, but it seemed to pale in comparison to the rest.) And then Tom Riddle — not being believed and being believed and realising that Dumbledore’s kindness had all been a part of leading him to die for the rest of the world —

_No_

And then being an Auror, and…

He was looking forward to going home. 

Harry was not expecting Prof— Headm— uh.

Harry was not expecting _Minerva_ to embrace him when he arrived at the gates of Hogwarts. She didn’t look as if she had aged a day since last he had seen her, and it made Harry wonder again just how old she was. Still walking tall and proud.

“I’ll show you to your quarters,” she said, as Harry summoned his trunks to follow them into the castle. “I am very glad you agreed to join us, Harry.” That she said nothing more suggested she had talked at length with Delilah Shacklebolt, and Harry found he didn’t mind.

The Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom was much as Harry remembered, if it bore the marks of repair. He had forgotten the door carefully hidden in the back that led to a clean, warm suite; small, but perfectly adequate. A bed in the corner, a couch and two armchairs (as if he intended to entertain) and a desk for his work. He had been in this room once before, with Remus, and it saddened him to know the man was lost to him.

His trunks set themselves in place, ready to be unpacked.

“What time shall I send the elves with your supper?”

“Headmaster McGonagall—”

“Minerva, please.”

This, again. Harry sighed.

“Eight, perhaps?”

Minerva nodded, and gripped Harry’s shoulder a moment. “The students arrive in four days,” she said. “Neville should be able to help with anything you need, until then — but don’t hesitate to come and visit, or to ask me any questions you may have.”

Harry tensed, suddenly. One of the seemingly empty portraits on the wall had shimmered slightly.

“They’re always with us, Harry,” Minerva said, and then she swept away.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn’t as if anyone had bloody asked him.

It wasn’t as if anyone had bothered to so much as _warn_ him.

But then, he had to admit: if they had asked him, he would have said he didn’t care. And if they’d warned him, he would have said it didn’t matter.

  
This was only the third time that Draco would experience the first night of school as a teacher, and he spent a few extra moments in his rooms adjusting his tie and smoothing down his hair. It was beginning to curl at the ends as he grew older and he let it grow longer. There was a part of him that thought his father would hate that and tell him to straighten it, but Draco didn’t mind it, in the end. Perhaps because it made it easier to look at himself in the mirror and see something other than the man he’d almost become.

He made his way to the Great Hall, watching as it filled up with children. They seemed to be younger every year; it was impossible for Draco to imagine he had ever been so small. Even so, he felt a warm surge of protectiveness. 

He stood to the side, watching the students find their places at their tables, with a ‘_get your finger out of your nose, Wensleydale_’ and a ‘_put that wand away before you hex _yourself_ with it, Miss Withnail_’. His face, his name, his reputation had never failed to draw interested and scandalised looks from students new and old, but Draco had learned something interesting in his first year of teaching; if you refused to pay a lick of attention, people really _did_ lose interest.

Draco adjusted his robes as he ascended the steps to the head table — and he froze.

In his head, the people Draco had attended school with had never aged a day. He’d puzzled over it more than once — the day that he’d bumped into Millicent Bulstrode in London, he’d taken at least five minutes to reconcile the woman in front of him with her clear skin and her fashionable up-do with the girl he’d first met almost twenty years ago. He’d searched her features for familiarity and conceded there wasn’t a great deal there, save the hollow-eyed look of so many of them who had survived the war.

Maybe that was all there was to it. They’d lost so many people, friends. Those never aged a day, never would. What right did Draco or anyone have to grow up, to recover, when Crabbe never even had a resting place?

Potter had changed. Twelve years older, certainly. But apparently the speccie git had never considered so much as changing his haircut. His eyeglasses were the same shape, his fringe still fell across the scar on his forehead — Draco was willing to bet his shoes weren’t polished and his wand was grubby. Perhaps that wasn’t fair. Aurors probably weren’t allowed grubby wands.

Potter’s eyes flicked up and met Draco’s and Draco could see that neither of them had been expecting to meet again. Not this way; not trapped together for ten months of the year in a draughty castle full of children. Potter had climbed the steps at the other end of the stage, and now he stood awkward and uncertain. Perhaps he wanted to run.

A familiar hand settled on Draco’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. He didn’t look up, but he tore his gaze from Potter’s.

“Professor Malfoy,” Minerva said. “Draco. The war has been over for thirteen years. You’re not children anymore.”

“No, Headmaster McGonagall,” he agreed. “We’re not.”

Longbottom had steered Potter to his seat, which was of course beside Draco’s. He’d have liked to pretend it was Minerva interfering, but as he’d been seated beside the previous Defence Professor for the last two years he had to assume it was tradition. Minerva certainly wouldn’t try to bait them into a duel on the night of the Great Feast, surely.

Draco took a deep breath, and reminded himself — in his mother’s voice, no less — that he was from a very long line of pureblood wizards and knew how to comport himself. He stopped at Potter’s shoulder. Maybe Potter had grown up, after all. He looked tired, he looked… he looked like a man who’d barely survived a war, is what he looked like, and as Draco knew what that was like he couldn’t begrudge him the shadows under the eyes.

“Professor Potter,” he said, cool and neutral. “Welcome back to Hogwarts.”

“Professor Malfoy,” Potter replied, nodding slowly. “Thank you. I’m very pleased to be here.” There was wariness in his eyes, but relief, as well, and in that passing way that Draco tended to pick up on emotions when he wasn’t paying attention (being distracted, for example, by a particular shade of green) he felt him relax as well.  
So Potter had expected him to make some sort of a scene? Perhaps he’d been waiting for Draco to hit him with a jelly-legs jinx, or another of the old classics.  
Draco took his seat, and reached for a glass of wine, just as a parade of tiny first-year students, shivering from the rain outside, were brought to the front of the room for sorting. He clamped down the flurry of emotions, keeping his face steady, and prepared to clap politely as each child was sent to sit with their new table. He could do this.

He could.

He didn’t have a lot of bloody choice in the matter.

“The Sorting,” Harry muttered. “Brave, Smart, Evil… and Miscellaneous.”

Draco almost choked.

When the sorting was done and the tables began to groan under the weight of the platters which had suddenly appeared, Draco turned to Neville, on his left, to enquire about his summer. He was singularly pleased when he felt a prickle of surprise from his right; but if Potter hadn’t paid enough attention at school to understand the importance of the relationship between the Herbology Master and the Potions Master, he was likely to be decidedly more discomfited by the expected partnership between the Potions Master and the Defence Against the Dark Arts Instructor.

Draco served himself small portions of almost everything in front of him, listening to Neville natter on about a trip he’d taken to the Dead Sea to collect samples of dead plants and work out how exactly it was that they all behaved so very much like they were alive. Ordinarily, Draco would have been intrigued; the medicinal applications could be tremendously important. This evening, though, he was struck by the rather distressing observation that Harry Potter had not developed any sort of manners in the twelve years since they’d endured a final year together at Hogwarts. One arm curled possessively around the plate, and he shovelled the food into his mouth at an alarming rate.

“I say, Potter. No one is going to try to take your food away before you finish it.” Potter flushed, and turned as if he intended to say something snotty, but decided against it. He moved his arm a good inch and a half and chewed what was in his mouth. “No one has ever gone hungry at Hogwarts. The kitchen elves would die of mortification.” He noticed the way Potter tensed, and of course, he was immediately struck with a great urge to poke until Potter snapped at him. But he didn’t. They were, after all, teachers now. Adults.

And if Potter — Harry — never got an opportunity to see that Draco had changed, then Draco might never learn how he had, either.

  
That night, after checking that all of his things were in their rightful places in his living quarters behind the Potions classroom, Draco sat down to write a letter.

_ Dearest Mother,_

He wrote.

_ I have settled in most satisfactorily and keenly anticipate the new term which begins tomorrow. All is well and little has changed; do watch for owls from some of your friends, Slytherin House has some worthy new students._

He paused for a long moment. He could sign off, but this letter barely counted as a letter, and his mother would immediately know that he was holding something back.

_ A curiosity, though; Harry Potter has taken up a post at Hogwarts. He will be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts. I shook his hand this evening and I promise you I intend to remain entirely cordial. If he reciprocates, I may even pass into the realm of civil, and perhaps then dip my toes into the cool waters of ‘friendly’._

There was so much he wanted to say.

_ I shall be at the Manor for dinner on Sunday the 31st as planned and look forward to seeing you then._  
_ Sincerely,_  
_ Your Loving Son,_  
_ Draco._

Draco sent the letter at once, summoning a school owl. Time to get some sleep.

  
He wasn’t at all surprised when the owl returned in the morning, delivering a letter from his mother. He slipped it into his robes and moved to unfold the Daily Prophet. He heard an irritated growl to his right, and immediately saw why;

**THE BOY WHO LIVED RETURNS TO HOGWARTS TO CONTINUE HIS LEGACY.**

“I say. Haven’t they come up with another name for you, yet?” he asked, his voice cool and even.

“I’m not sure I really want them to,” Potter said. “The other names they’ve used over the years have run the gamut from worse to much, much worse. I filed an injunction on the Prophet eight years ago preventing them from calling me the Saviour anymore,” he admitted miserably and then flushed.

“You poor dear,” Draco replied, rolling his eyes hard enough so that the seventh year Slytherins could hear it at the very back of the room. “Perhaps you’d like to see the headline from my first day. It might cheer you up. _Death Eater to teach innocent children_. I had so many howlers on the second day that my ears were ringing for days — almost as many as Headmaster McGonagall.”

Potter looked as if he had something to say to that, but in the end, he shrugged and returned to his breakfast. His arm was curved around the plate again, but he seemed to notice Draco noticing, and pulled it back a little.

“I’ll take my leave. Enjoy the first day of classes, Potter. Neville,” he added, pulling his chair back.

He hurried back to his room, careful to look like he was not hurrying at all. Once in the privacy of his classroom, he opened the letter.

_ My Dearest Draco,_

The letter read.

_ I am pleased that you have arrived safely, though the Manor is cold and lonely without you._   
_As for the other; please, my love, do try to remember who you are, and who he is. Mr Potter saved our lives, and had he not excused himself from the position he was offered at the Wizengamot and testified for the two of us, we would have suffered the same fate that your father does. You wanted to be his friend, once. Try to leave the past where it belongs and step bravely into the future. You may yet get what you wanted so many years ago._

Draco really hated his mother’s very long memory at times.

_ I cannot pretend that a friendship with Harry Potter wouldn’t help us in our efforts to restore the house of Malfoy to its previous position of prestige in the wizarding world. I regret your father’s passing every day, but hope that his great sacrifice can mean that we continue to make strides towards our former place in society, so that his name will never be forgotten, nor ever again linked in people’s hearts and minds with the reign of Voldemort._   
_ Write soon. I plan to ask Hettie to bake your favourite salted lemon biscuits this week. If you wish to consider that an enticement, you certainly may._   
_ With all of my love,_   
_ Mother_

Friends. Friends! Pah. And yet, Draco found he still wanted that, after all of these years.

  
When the day’s classes were done, and students were tucked up safely in their common rooms, already complaining about how much homework they had, Draco sat by the fire in a pose he had learned best served him when he sought a specific memory. It took a few minutes, but he found it.

Potter had been standing by the side of his chair, there at the Wizengamot. He didn’t look down, didn’t make eye contact with Draco once. He looked as if he hadn’t slept since the Battle of Hogwarts and perhaps he hadn’t — certainly, Draco hadn’t. He was afraid to, afraid that if he slept he would dream that he was in Azkaban.

“Hermione Granger had inflicted a stinging hex which made my face swell up, so my identity might be hidden,” he was saying, very calmly, his voice more adult than any Draco had ever managed to achieve. “Mr Malfoy was brought to identify me. He did; we’d known each other for several years, and he knew it was me. He lied to Bellatrix Lestrange and said he didn’t know if it was me or not. He risked his own life, and those of his parents, to save my life.”

There had been a hum of voices which stopped the moment Kingsley Shacklebolt tapped his gavel.

“Mr Malfoy — Mr Potter has too kind a heart. Can you tell the Wizengamot, under Veritaserum, whether you recognised your classmate at that time?”

A part of Draco had wanted to lie. He still remembered that. Saying no, he hadn’t known if it was Potter or not. Be sent to Azkaban, and hope to be dead within the year. He wanted to lie because he’d had a fitful of being saved by Harry Sodding Potter and he wanted to make his own stupid decisions, just once.

But Veritaserum hummed in his head and he couldn’t.

“I knew it was him. I’d know him anywhere,” he spat.

Potter had turned, then, and they’d held each other’s gazes for what seemed like an eternity. Potter had looked sick. Gaunt. Not only sleeping too little but not eating properly, either, and Draco wondered if anyone was taking proper care of the git.

And then, days later, pacing in the corridor and waiting until his mother emerged, almost unable to stand, she was so relieved. She wrapped her arms around Draco and neither of them cried, but only because Malfoys didn’t cry.

“Draco,” she had said, as Potter slipped past. “Mr Potter,” she’d said, a little louder.

Potter had glanced back, once, with an expression on his face that simply said _don’t_ and then he was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

Harry had spent so many weeks, now, worrying about what would happen when he was actually in front of a classroom of students that when he was suddenly there, he thought very briefly about running away. All the work he’d done on preparing lessons — he didn’t have much to go on, since only Lupin had ever been any good as a teacher — it all seemed to go out of the window. On a broom. Like Harry wanted to.

It was a fifth-year class, the first one. Harry seemed to remember that fifteen year olds were a particularly cranky bunch.

“Hullo,” he said. Some of the students greeted him back; some giggled (including a few of the girls, hands covering their mouths; Merlin, did he not want to have to worry about something like that), and a few sat waiting for him to, what, explain how they’d won the war?

“I’m Professor Potter. I have the lesson plans from your old professor,” he said. “This year, we’re going to be focusing on the defence spells and counter-curses you’ll need to get through your O.W.L.s. I don’t much like teaching from a book, or learning from one, so it will be a very practical course, though we’ll be using the textbook you all seem to have — does anyone not have one?”

A miserable-looking boy in Hufflepuff colours raised his hand. “My Kneazle ate mine.”

“Ah. You need to make sure they have plenty of snacks. I will have one brought from the storeroom for you for next lesson.” One, Harry thought, that he would ensure had no scribbling in the margins.

A student raised her hand, and Harry raised his eyebrows.

“Is it true that you conjured a fully corporeal Patronus in your third year?” she asked.

“Er,” Harry said, “Yes, I did. And we’ll be learning those later in the —”

“Is it true you can do a non-verbal, wandless disarming spell?”

“Yes, but —”

“My mother says you saved the world,” a boy in the back who reminded Harry a great deal of Ernie MacMillan called loudly.

“I had a lot of help,” Harry said firmly. “No one person can save the world. Which is why in this class, we’ll be working together. And I won’t have you sitting in houses. Everyone; get up and walk around, and sit with someone from a different house. Someone you haven’t met before, ideally, or at least someone you’ve never taken the time to get to know. You’ll be sitting somewhere different every single class, so I encourage you not to dawdle over this, or I’ll start making everyone come ten minutes early.”

There was a lot of chatter as the students moved around, some excited, some angry, all at least a little bit intrigued. A few students ended up sitting next to someone they well and truly loathed. Two boys in the middle of the classroom, one in Gryffindor robes and one in Slytherin sat with their chairs as far apart as they could manage it, looking murderously at Harry. The Slytherin boy had hair red enough so that he had to be related to the Weasleys one way or another, and the Gryffindor boy had skin such a dark black it shone under the candlelights.

Harry wanted to laugh. They couldn’t have looked much less like Harry and Malfoy, but they couldn’t have looked much more like them, either.

“Alright. We’re going to start this lesson by talking through some of the work we will be doing this semester,” he said, feeling quite pleased with himself. And when, ninety minutes later, the class was finished, he sat behind his desk, feeling _inordinately_ pleased with himself.

He didn’t anticipate a visit before lunch, but he couldn’t pretend he didn’t feel a little thrill of something when Malfoy stuck his head in the door.

“I just heard a few of my students calling you ‘that Gryffindor git’,” he said, and Harry managed a smile. “I mean, I suppose they could have been talking about another Gryffindor git, there are always a few about.”

“I’d hate to disappoint your house,” Harry replied, shrugging. “I’m sure you’ve told them to expect terrible things from me.”

“I do try. Problem is they’ve read far too much of your press by the time they get here. See you at lunch, Scarhead?”

Harry tried to look annoyed, but he couldn’t, quite. “Don’t eat all the crackling, prat,” he replied, and Malfoy closed the door.

So what if they could never be friends? Harry hadn’t had high hopes even the night before, when Malfoy shook his hand and welcomed him cordially back to Hogwarts. Still. Getting along a little better than they had when they were children would be a good start. He jotted down some notes about the class and wound his scarf around his neck, before he headed down into the Great Hall for lunch.

“Do the houses mix, much?” Harry asked Malfoy, at lunch. There was a little splash of colour here or there, but for the most part, the houses still sat in their rows, oldest students at the back where teachers wouldn’t have to listen to them lie about their sexual conquests, youngest students at the front so the teachers could watch for any homesickness.

“Not as much as we’d like,” Neville replied. “Isn’t that right, Draco. Me and him, we’ve been saying it for for ages, now. There’s nothing wrong with the house system, but it shouldn’t limit who the students make friends with. Isn’t that right, Draco?”

Malfoy looked rather like he’d prefer not to have the conversation again, and only grunted. Harry wondered if he agreed at all, or if he’d learned to ignore Neville. He served himself some lunch, and had only just begun to lean over it possessively when Malfoy gave him a pointed look.

“Merlin’s sake, Potter, you eat like you were starved as a child. Ow!”

Malfoy turned to Neville. Neville was calmly eating, pretending he hadn’t just kicked Malfoy in the shin, but Harry felt his face burn. There were not a lot of people who knew about Harry’s childhood beyond having been raised by an Aunt and an Uncle. Neville could relate, as good a woman as his Grandmother was. But something about his misery at the loss of his parents had led Harry to tell him a little more about it, one night when they were sitting on the windowsill of their dormitory unable to sleep, watching the sleet fall. The cupboard under the stairs. Feeling hungry all the time. His sneaking suspicion that the reason he never got as tall as his father was as simple as never having had enough to eat.

Ron and Hermione knew, too, and Molly Weasley. But Harry didn’t want anyone else to know. Certainly not Draco Malfoy, who had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and only gave it up to swap for a gold one. Who had probably refused to eat when he didn’t like the food the house elves had prepared.

“What can I say. Auror vigilance,” he said. “And I didn’t get much of the crackling. Can you pass the pumpkin juice, please, Malfoy? See, I do have manners.”

“If you did, you wouldn’t have to say so,” Malfoy replied, but he passed the juice.

There was one terrible thing about being back in the castle.

The year after the Battle of Hogwarts had been a terrible one for everyone. There was little anyone could talk about then who they had lost, and who had done what. He’d spent that time, right up until their unprecedented eighth year at Hogwarts sharing a room with Ron and Hermione at the Burrow, and they’d all woken each other up with nightmares at least a few times a week.

There had been so much to do, though. Rebuilding Hogwarts took months — it was far quicker to rebuild than a simple Muggle castle would have been, since the castle was determined to help, but the castle couldn’t do everything itself — it was injured. It had been mortally wounded, and for the first few weeks people wondered if it had actually died.

And there had been the trials. Harry had refused the offer of a place on the Wizengamot because he thought he was too young to be determining the fates of people he knew, or didn’t know. And he wasn’t sure how he could ever be impartial.

Besides — it meant he could act as a witness, when he needed to. And he’d done that, as honestly and as neutrally as he was able to.

What else. Trying to find the odd moment to act their ages, that had been a challenge. Riding brooms felt like a waste of time. They weren’t studying, so complaining about homework wasn’t on the cards. Trapped between a childhood that had been one of the many casualties of war and an adulthood they weren’t yet ready for.

So: being busy, staying busy, holding loved ones close and watching the Prophet for news of the trials meant that for most people, the nightmares began to fade.

Until eighth year at Hogwarts. And that didn’t bear thinking about.

And now Harry was back at Hogwarts again — after years where the nightmares only came every few months — and they were back in full force. Arrangements had been made to release any ghosts that wanted to go; Harry had been surprised at the time that Nearly Headless Nick and Peeves had gone onto whatever was next. Rowena Ravenclaw tended to stay out of the way, and Harry had barely seen her a half dozen times in all of his years at Hogwarts. There were two new child ghosts that Harry couldn’t even bear to think about; they seemed to hover near the kitchens as if hoping for an extra cauldron cake or a mug of Butterbeer, and Harry wasn’t entirely sure they knew they were dead.

So — nightmares.

The first week or so, Harry felt he was managing quite admirably. Pepper-up potion and coffee seemed to keep him going in the absence of good quality sleep.

He remembered the potion Madam Pomfrey had given him that year — not all the time, she’d warned it was addictive and could cause an eventual decline into madness, but in the worst times she’d given him at least a little. In his early years as an Auror he’d fallen back onto the stuff when times were especially difficult. But in the years since, he’d learned to get by; he’d wake up drenched in sweat and tell himself over and over again that it was a nightmare, that he was safe, that none of his traps had gone off and he was alone in his bedroom at Grimmauld Place, or the flat he often used in the ministry building if he’d worked too late.

These tricks were no longer working. He needed some of that potion.

It took less than half an hour in the library to find the recipe and instructions. Tomorrow night, he told himself, he’d get this sorted right out.


	4. Chapter 4

Draco ran his fingers through his hair, and stifled a yawn; he glanced at the clock and found it was still too early for him to sleep well, creature of habit that he was. But the book in his lap was getting impossible to read, the letters swimming and wriggling in front of his eyes. He took his readings glasses off, folded them neatly and placed them on the side table.

He was debating what else might amuse him for another hour or two when he heard a hesitant knock on the door of his classroom, past his rooms.

Odd.

He fastened his robes at his throat and walked straight-backed through the door to his quarters, locking it behind him, and opened the classroom door.

It was Harry Potter, because of course it was Harry Potter.

“Professor Potter,” he said, in cool, formal greeting.

“Er,” Potter said. It was gratifying to know that he had become no less eloquent in his advanced years. “Malf… Professor,” he finally managed to say. Draco regarded him with studied patience.

“Is there something I can help you with?”

Potter fumbled in the pocket of his robe. His robe, at least, Draco was pleased to note, was new and well-cut, well-sewn, and properly pressed. He could have made an effort to look a little less bleak, though. “I need some potion ingredients,” he said, but he didn’t hand over the parchment. Draco held his hand out for it, waiting.

“I can get them myself,” Potter said.

“Potter,” Draco said, frowning. “You’ve always been rubbish at potions.” He gestured for the note.

“On second thought, it’s probably simpler to simply Owl for them. Leave your supplies to the students. Goodnight, Malf… Prof…”

“Potter,” Draco said. “Please try to avoid tossing any of your petty, vengeful hexes my way for making the observation, but you look absolutely dreadful.” Before Potter could react, Draco had snatched the list from his hand and pushed the door closed behind them both. He looked over the list, gesturing for Potter to follow. Halfway to the supply closet, he faltered a step.

“Dreamless sleep?” he asked, as if the list could be for anything else. Of course it was for dreamless sleep; Potter was looking as enchanting as ever, with his eyes that ridiculous emerald green, and his hair sticking up in the back, and a jawline that could only be described as patrician. But the shadows under his eyes were very telling. “I usually have some on hand, but after last week’s accident with the boggart in Ravenclaw Tower, a number of first and second year students had rather urgent need for it. I should have prepared some more.”

He opened the supply cupboard and began collecting everything on the list.

“Really, Malfoy, I can do it myself. You must be busy.”

He could have reminded Potter again that he was rubbish at potions but twice in five minutes felt a little fourth-year, if he was honest. Plain old-fashioned ignoring seemed like a better option.

“I _am_ the Potions Master,” he said drily, as he assembled everything on a tray.

At the door to his quarters, he hesitated. He could do the work out here, but the rooms were cosy, and the fire was roaring, and he wasn’t going to pretend to himself that he didn’t want Potter to come inside. Otherwise, he would have offered to make the potion on his own and had a House-elf deliver it.

“Malfoy,” Potter said, following close behind as if he thought he might be able to snatch the tray away. They were inside Draco’s sitting room before Potter realised that he had even crossed the threshold. “Please don’t take _this_ the wrong way; but I’m struggling to think of any reason why I should trust you. Do I actually need to remind you that you hate me?”

Draco felt a sharp, vicious pang.

“I fail to see the relevance,” he said, coolly. “As you may recall, Professor Snape loathed Remus Lupin to the core of his being, and yet for the year he taught Defence at Hogwarts he faithfully and immaculately brewed him the Wolfsbane Potion every month. _Accio_ Firewhiskey.”

“There’s no Firewhi— oh,” Potter said, when a bottle and two glasses came to rest at the end of Draco’s personal work-bench.

“It’s not for the potion,” Draco said, neutrally, as the bottle helpfully served them each a measure. “Sit down, would you? You look like you could be done in by a stiff wind.”

“I think you might be onto something there,” Potter replied wearily, sitting on a tall stool at the bench. “I —”

Draco didn’t look up. He could brew this particular potion in his sleep, but he took his time. This was the first time he’d been alone with Potter since the term had started. But whatever it was he’d been planning to say, he had clearly decided against it, reaching for his glass, instead. Draco was gratified that he noticed it wasn’t the ugly crystalware from the kitchens, but a Malfoy heirloom. Potter turned the tumbler in his hand, admiring the rainbows cast within.

“It’s nice,” Potter said, looking around.

“It should be. It’s a very old bottle.”

“No, I… yes, it’s very nice. I meant the room.”

It _was_ nice; Draco had put some real effort in, the first year, nudging walls here and there, expanding bookshelves and carefully selecting wallpaper and carpet. The window, as large as it was, looking out over a starry sky, was entirely artificial but no less beautiful for all of that, and there was always the scent of nutmeg and cinnamon in the fire. Mother had helped, of course; there wasn’t a witch in England with her style, and as complicated as their relationship could be at times, Draco had enjoyed having a project for them to work on together.

“Thank you.” He might have stood a little straighter; he was certain he looked a little more smug.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this side of you, Malfoy. Have you lost all of your snark? I think I might be missing it.”

“We’re not children anymore, Potter. But I shall dream up some stingers for when you’ve slept more than six hours in a week. I hope you didn’t lose your edge in the DMLE. Do you still spend a lot of time with Weasley? Because if your comeback for everything is ‘well so’s your mum’ I shall be very disappointed. As will Mother.”

Potter actually smiled at that. Snickered, even. Relaxed, crossing his arms on the bench and meeting Draco’s eyes with something that might have been guarded optimism. He was still watching Draco work; trust wasn’t something that came easily to either of them, but it was still somewhat disheartening. He’d been looking forward to the possibility of… well, not a friend, but someone to talk to who was under the age of seventy and not obsessed with plants. Not that Neville was a bad sort, and he had won puberty roulette with flying colours which made him awfully nice to look at, but he was hardly a challenge.

“I see your paranoia hasn’t been dulled by years of hunting out dark wizards,” he said, at last, and Potter’s eyes snapped up, almost apologetic. “I’m really not intending to poison you, though your distrust is well-earned.”

“No. I’m sorry. It’s not that.”

“Then?”

“I was just watching. What did you do, before you came back here to teach, Malfoy?”

“I worked at St. Mungo’s, actually. I still consult for them, from time to time, when they have a potions-related catastrophe of some sort or need help developing something new. I was always rather good at this, I think you’ll remember. The secret is: follow the directions, stop aggravating Snape, and stop staring daggers at the back of the Slytherins’ heads, and you might learn a thing or two.”

“Now, if only you’d mentioned that in first year.”

“Indeed.” He sighed. “If it will make you feel any safer, I could remind you that I owe you rather a number of life-debts. If you’d like, you can collect on one by asking me to refrain from poisoning you. Forever, if you like, or if that’s too tedious a commitment we could say until you retire from Hogwarts? We could take up our blood feud again as old men.” Potter looked distinctly uncomfortable about that, and less than inclined to ask questions about it, but Draco resolved to make sure he understood the concept, sooner rather than later.

“Er, no thanks. Not something I intend to collect on.” He looked like he had something else to say, but he left off. As Draco was beginning to enjoy Potter being too exhausted to behave like a right git, he elected to leave it for another day. No Malfoy would walk around with a life debt uncollected upon, but he did feel every so slightly sorry for the prat, just then.

The bottle topped up both of their glasses, and Draco turned the potion in the cauldron seven times, with a silver knife, watching as it turned a shimmering silver.

“Isn’t it supposed to be purple?”

Draco flipped an hourglass and looked balefully at Potter. “It will be. Your suspiciousness really is not your most endearing trait, Potter.” He took off his robes, and hung them on a coat hook near the door. Underneath, he wore a pair of silk trousers in a pale grey with a matching waistcoat, and a pale blue shirt. He loosen the tie, blue again if a darker shade, and enjoyed the furtive look Potter gave him. Potter hesitated, and followed suit, hanging his robe alongside Draco’s. It was very warm in the room. Draco folded his sleeves up to his elbows, and nodded pointedly at Potter.

“Your finest garb, I see.” Draco gestured at a comfortable armchair by the fireplace. Potter looked momentarily embarrassed by his Muggle clothes, but too tired to care all that much. “What on earth are those? On your feet?”

Potter was staring at the ruins of the Dark Mark on Draco’s arm, but shook his gaze away, embarrassed. “Sneakers.”

“Sneakers. For sneaking, presumably? How Slytherin of you. I must say, Potter, I know for a fact that you’re at _least_ half as wealthy as I am — when are you going to start dressing like an adult?”

“I wear robes all day.”

“And that’s an excuse?”

“Malfoy, no one cares what’s underneath.”

They both froze, and Potter couldn’t help but glance at the Mark again. Draco sighed. “I’m not sure everyone shares that perspective, but I’ll leave it. For now.” He folded himself elegantly into the second armchair and summoned their glasses back, landing one at Potter’s elbow and one in his own hand. “And it’s not about what anyone else thinks, Potter, _you_ should care. Raised by wolves, weren’t you. Not everyone is born with taste, but it’s not a _great_ deal of effort to acquire it.”

Potter looked relieved for the change of subject, and he reached for his glass. “If we’re going to sit here and talk about clothes all night, then sod the Dreamless Sleep. You _could_ just Stun and Body-Bind me for a few hours. You could listen to yourself talk, I wouldn’t be forced to listen to you talk, and I’d finally get a little sleep.”

Draco snorted. “Not bad. A little more practice and you’ll be flinging barbs like it’s 1995.” He offered Potter what he hoped was a sincere smile, and with a moment’s hesitation Potter seemed to accept it.

They were silent a while, the fire seeming to hypnotise Potter, and Potter having a somewhat similar effect on Draco.

“Does it hurt?” Potter asked, and Draco didn’t feign ignorance. He turned his forearm to look at the Mark, blurred and scarred, the musculature beneath warped and twisted — his left hand hadn’t been quite the same since. Sometimes it didn’t cooperate the way it used to, his thumb failing to curl quickly enough or a sharp pain would make his fingers spasm suddenly.

“All the time,” he answered, slowly, and reached for his glass.

When the hour passed, the hourglass trilling a sweet tune, Potter blinked awake; suddenly alarmed to have dropped his guard around Draco. Draco closed his book and moved back to the bench.

“Come and see, Potter,” he said. Potter’s hair was sticking up even more in the back but if it was possible, he looked at least two degrees closer to sane with almost an hour of rest under his belt. He climbed clumsily off the comfortable armchair and followed Draco to the work bench to watch him add the final ingredient, passionflower oil.

The entire potion seemed to hold its breath, and then it shuddered, turning a bright jewel purple. Draco took it off the heat. Potter looked relieved.

A minute later, Draco handed him a large vial with a heavy stopper. “I assume you know the dosage. I’ll put the rest of this aside, for now, and give some to Madam Pomfrey. Just let me know when you need more.”

“Er,” Potter replied, staring at the bottle.

“Just a thank you will suffice.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I couldn’t decide if you were suddenly speechless at my extraordinary skill, or leading up to some kind of very moving oration — I took a chance and guessed the latter, Potter. A thank you will suffice.”

“You just wait until I’ve had some sleep. I owe you more loaded banter than I can properly calculate right now.”

“I am simply quivering with anticipation,” Draco said, leaning against the door jamb as Potter slipped his robes over his ridiculous Muggle nonsense.

“Thank you,” Potter said, raising the bottle in his hand. “I mean it.”

“My pleasure,” Draco replied, hands in the pockets of his grey trousers, nodding.

Potter turned away, and Draco followed him across the classroom to the door. The lock on it was a secret one that Draco had invented himself, knowing how students liked to pilfer ingredients. He slipped the lock with a non-verbal incantation and a jab of his wand, and opened the door.

“Potter,” he said,“I don’t hate you. You did save the world, after all, and I don’t have alternative accommodations available.”

“Oh,” Potter said, looking embarrassed, his shoulders closing in as if to make himself smaller. “No, it’s… forget I said that, I’m tired. It’s like you said. We’re not children anymore.”

“No, we’re not. And you’re right; when we were children, I did hate you. I wished Voldemort had killed you when you were a baby.” Draco hadn’t expected quite this degree of honesty to tumble from his lips, but here it was.

“Er,” Potter replied, his brow furrowing. “Is this supposed to make me feel better, Malfoy? Because —”

“And I wished you’d been sorted into Slytherin, because I’d picked you out to be my best friend before I ever got on the train when we were eleven. And I envied you, and I admired you.”

Potter looked like he wanted to hide under that old invisibility cloak of his. He shook his head, but he didn’t take a step, which was telling. “You envied me? If you even knew how cracked that is —”

“You did the right thing. Even when it was idiotic. Even when it was dangerous or illegal. You weren’t following a thousand years of Pureblood law and honouring the commands of your father,” he said, with some weight, hoping that one day, this might be a conversation they could have more seriously. “I hated you. But you were my hero.”

He rather enjoyed Potter’s stunned expression when he pushed the door closed and locked it again with a satisfying swish and click.

When Potter was gone, Draco sat watching the fire for a few minutes longer, letting himself think, and remember. And then he went to bed.

Draco had a light breakfast of tea and toast in his room in the morning, reading over some notes for the N.E.W.T. class that afternoon. Satisfied, he headed out into the castle to find a student or two who was dressed untidily enough to warrant lose a house point or two — always important to keep them on their toes.

“I say, Thomas, your face.” Draco’s face was gentle. Always important to make _some_ effort to be tactful. “Pimples, or a hex? I don’t remember you looking quiet this spotty last week.”

“A hex,” admitted the miserable boy.

“Go and see Madame Pomfrey,” Malfoy said. “Go on. I shall pass a note on to Professor Saltzman to say you’ll be late.”

“Getting soft in your advanced age, Malfoy,” came a voice at his elbow. Draco smirked, and his eyes flashed to Potter’s. He looked significantly better. Of course, without the shadows beneath them to distract Malfoy, those eyes were once again a bit of a problem.

“You look slightly less like something a Kneazle dug up,” Draco replied. “My compliments to your stylist.”

“I’d pass those on, but he has a big enough head as it is,” Potter said, and he peeled off toward the second-floor classrooms. He was walking straighter. He looked almost as if he had combed his hair, but that was probably Draco’s unfounded streak of optimism speaking.

Draco wanted to chase him down and talk to him. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere without students, or twenty years of ugly history between them, or…

Draco bit his lip.

Oh, this was _very_ inconvenient.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry had been grading a stack of papers — quite cheerfully, his students were doing well, for the most part — when he heard a knock on the door of his room, behind the defence classroom. Knock might have been generous, actually; someone was pounding their fist, and Harry’s gut twisted.

“Potter,” came the voice, strangled and ill. “Help!”

Malfoy almost fell into the room, when Harry opened the door; his skin was a worrying shade of green, he appeared to be having trouble walking, and Harry had to half-drag, half-carry him to a large armchair.

“Malfoy! What happened?” he asked, patting Malfoy down carefully, trying to find any obvious source of pain.

“No,” Malfoy snapped. “Don’t touch. Get some dragonhide gloves, Potter. It’s in my pocket.”

When Harry was suitably attired, he carefully pulled the object from Malfoy’s robe pocket, and stared at it. “Where on earth did this come from?”

“A gift from a fan.” Malfoy sounded like he was trying to make a joke, but he was obviously in terrible pain, and Harry realised at once that he had a fever. The object in his pocket looked, for a moment, like a simple crystal ball, quite lovely at a glance. But the oiliness of the dark magic writhing inside it was very far from lovely. Even through the dragon hide gloves, Harry felt it reaching, reaching —

But not for him. It still wanted to get to Malfoy.

“We should call Madam Pomfrey,” Harry said, as he hurried across the small space and reached for a curse-box sitting on his shelf.

“Bit beyond her,” Malfoy said, and his eyes fell closed.

Harry swore under his breath, and raced back to examine the damage. When he pushed Malfoy’s sleeve up, he could see where the curse was growing, the dark tendrils trying to take root. He gritted his teeth. At least it was something that he had seen before. He conjured a small crystal bottle and pulled out his wand.

“I need an elf,” he called, and with a loud crack, he heard two appear in his room. Two was even better. He spoke firmly. “I need you to bring Madam Pomfrey,” he said, nodding at the first, who disapparated just as quickly as he had appeared. “And I need you to summon the Headmaster.”

In the meantime, Harry began a chant, under his breath. The curse was unwilling to cooperate, digging in harder, but little by little he began to pull something that looked like a plant — some kind of kelp — out of Malfoy’s arm.

The last time he had done this, he’d had two other Aurors with him to help. Harry was too much raw power and not enough focus, always had been. Even so, he kept the chant up, fine wandwork that he hadn’t been sure he was still capable of, and by the time Headmaster McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey were crowded around the unconscious form of Draco Malfoy, the dark was beginning to allow itself to be pulled into the bottle.

“Professor McGonagall,” he said, through clenched teeth. “Help.”

She saw the problem at once, and laid a hand on Harry’s shoulder, mimicking his wandwork with the other hand an joining in chanting the counter-curse. Madame Pomfrey placed a cooling compress on Malfoy’s forehead, fretting loudly, though Harry found himself able to ignore her in favour of concentrating on his task.

It was almost an hour later that Harry stoppered the bottle. He put it aside, and reached for Malfoy’s hand; it seemed thin, dehydrated, but the normal colour. No further tendrils of magic invaded his wrist, or his arm, and in truth even his face looked more peaceful.

“Harry,” Professor McGonagall said, clearly distressed, enough so she could ignore how tired she was. “Do you know how this happened?”

Just as exhausted, Harry brought the curse-box back, and opened it. “He called it fan mail. Does this happen often?”

Professor McGonagall murmured “_Lumos_”, and held her lit wand over the box. “Not as often as it used to. There are some people who will never forgive, and never try to understand. You’ve seen this particular curse before, Harry, I take it?”

Harry nodded, and turned to Madam Pomfrey, who was loosening Malfoy’s clothes and cooling his forehead again. “Is he alright?”

She nodded. “I think so. Or he will be. Good gracious, Harry, he would have died. I’ve never seen this before, never seen such a malicious…” He turned away and left her to her fussing.

Harry turned back to Professor McGonagall. “I’ll need to destroy both the bottle and the crystal ball. Not tonight; I’ll need time to prepare. Why isn’t his mail checked? Mine is.”

“There is a world of difference between watching out for unexpected love potions, and screening for highly concealed dark magic; but I should think that for the near future, Draco’s mail should come through you.” Her mouth was tight and angry. “The packages, at the very least.”

The three of them sat, for a while, waiting for Malfoy to wake. Professor McGonagall glanced around the room, more than once, but her eyes returned to Malfoy every time.

“You know that you may decorate as you wish, Mr Potter,” she said. “Harry.”

“Er,” Harry replied. “Thanks?” He didn’t look up. He knew what the place looked like, and it was fine. Though suddenly, he didn’t want anyone looking at it. He stood up. “I think you should both leave.” He cast a spell to unfold the chair all the way down flat so that Malfoy could sleep, and summoned a couple of blankets. “Madam Pomfrey, I shall send an elf if I need you, but I think I should just keep an eye on him for tonight. This curse is one I know well, and I can deal with any minor setbacks. Goodnight.”

The finality in his voice was unmistakable, and the two of them stood, Headmaster McGonagall brushing a finger over Malfoy’s arm and Madam Pomfrey checking his temperature once more. Harry brought a chair up to Malfoy’s bedside, reached for a book, and settled in to wait.

In truth, staying awake was no great hardship. Harry had been very carefully rationing out his Dreamless Sleep so as not to encounter too many ill effects, and of course to avoid addiction. Which meant that other nights were very, very difficult. He had been researching spells that might make him forget his nightmares on waking but was getting nowhere. He was getting desperate enough to consider asking Hermione for help, but his conviction that she would recommend therapy had kept him from doing so until now.

Malfoy stirred, and Harry reached out, taking his hand.

“You’re alright, Draco,” he said. “You just need some more rest.”

Asleep, Malfoy was even prettier to look at than he was when he was awake. His hair had darkened a little as he’d gotten older, and now it was a dirtier blond, long enough around his shoulders to pull back into a knot when he was so moved, and when free it curled gently around his face. His eyes were still the colour of an unquiet sea but they didn’t have the same anger in them, and that suited him very well.

Malfoy tightened his hand around Harry’s, and tensed, beginning to open his eyes. Harry waved his wand lazily and the chair began to straighten into a chair again; still lazy and easy, but not longer flat for sleeping.

“You called me Draco,” Malfoy said, and Harry felt his face flush. Malfoy opened his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Just a hair after four-thirty in the morning,” Harry said, exhausted. “How do you feel?”

Malfoy didn’t answer, just opened and closed his eyes several times.

“I’ll be cancelling your classes, today and tomorrow,” Harry said, firmly. “With the weekend, that will be four days’ rest, and then you should be alright.”

Malfoy’s lip curled in irritation, but when he opened his eyes, his look was one of relief.

He narrowed his eyes, then, though, looking around the room. Had he forgotten where he was? And then those same stormy grey eyes darkened in worry. He even tried to sit up, which was patently ridiculous.

“Merlin’s bollocks, Potter — have you been _robbed_?”

Harry was so stunned by the question that he immediately stood up, wand in hand, looking around at everything of value he owned. Mad-Eye’s old foe glass, milky with age, alongside the new one that Ron and Hermione had given him for his birthday. His broom; it had been a while since he flew it, but it was the very latest, a rare indulgence. His cabinets were locked, and they were warded, and if anyone was daft enough to try to rob an ex-Auror they were in for a terrible shock. He tucked his wand away in the pocket of his robe.

“I — no?”

Malfoy was sitting up, if not very straight. “But where are your things?”

Harry blinked several times. What had Malfoy been looking for?

“My clothes are in the wardrobe. My books are in the shelves.” He shrugged, beginning to feel annoyed. “If this is the way you express your gratitude for my having prevented you from dying looking like an old raisin —”

“But your _photographs_?”

Harry felt something ugly coil in his heart. He pointed to a photograph of himself and Ron and Hermione, in a small frame on the desk. He had a few others, but they all hurt too much to display. The Order of the Phoenix in 1981, his mother’s softly curved belly and Sirius’s proud smile. He was barely able to look at them, the way they reminded him of everything he had lost.

“Harry Potter,” Malfoy said, leaning forward in the chair. “This room is an abomination. And it’s so _small_. You know the castle can accommodate more space, don’t you? You just… nudge the walls.”

Harry tensed. “We don’t all require large rooms and fancy carpet, Malfoy. We didn’t all grow up in mansions. You and I don’t share tastes, and that’s fine.”

“Your _taste_,” Malfoy said, almost spitting the word, “suggests you spent your formative years in _Azkaban_.”

Harry was suddenly so angry that some spiteful thirteen-year-old version of himself rose to the surface and he found himself thinking again of Ginny’s bat-bogey hex. But he didn’t reach for his wand or his magic. He was an adult. An Auror, a Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and he had killed Tom Riddle.

He could at times still be rather petty, though.

“I didn’t grow up in Azkaban — I grew up in a cupboard under the stairs. I was marginally raised by an aunt and uncle who hated and feared me. Your vicious barbs in the Great Hall are dead on, because they were never great fans of having to feed me, either, and if I didn’t finish what little was on my plate before my cousin finished his own feast, he’d finish it for me. I am very happy for you that you enjoy your posh wallpaper and your beautiful old furniture but I don’t have those sorts of expectations of life. I prefer to focus on my work. Now, if you’re feeling better —”

He was expecting Malfoy to look angry. Or to be rolling his eyes, ready with a barb. But he looked… fuck it. He looked sad, and worried, and disappointed, and that was about a thousand times worse.

“Your aunt and — but you’re _Harry Potter_,” Malfoy said. “They must have known you —”

Harry sighed. He wished very much that he hadn’t opened this particular can of worms. The last thing he needed was Draco fucking Malfoy to feel sorry for him. And just when they were getting along better, too. He scratched at his forehead.

“I really don’t want to discuss this any more, Malfoy,” he said, and tried not to enjoy the way Malfoy flinched at the name. “Are you going to return to your rooms? Madam Pomfrey would probably like to keep an eye on you in the hospital wing, if you can bear the scrutiny.”

But Malfoy, while on his feet, didn’t look like he planned to go anywhere.

“You’re allowed to want things for yourself, you know. You don’t have to stare at grey walls, and stone floors. You have money, I know you do. You’re allowed to be happy and comfortable. Life isn’t only about working, Potter, it’s about living, too. And I’m not sure you quite know how.”

“Oh,” Harry said. “Living? I seem to remember that for years, your idea of living was swanning around drunk on the society pages of the Daily Prophet, in and out of people’s beds and flashing your money around. Not something that appeals greatly to me.”

He enjoyed the way Malfoy flushed, and envied the way Malfoy seemed able to dismiss the criticism moments later.

“At least I was having fun, Harry,” he said. “_Fun_. It’s this thing you have where —”

“I’m giving you one more chance to leave on your feet and then I’m tossing you into the fireplace with a handful of floo powder. And you’d better believe I don’t care where you end up.”

Malfoy spent another bewildered moment looking around the room, and then he shook his head.

“Thank you for,” he said, gesturing at the curse box, and the phial full of filthy, greasy magic. “I didn’t mean to be rude about your room.”

Harry wanted to help him walk back to the potions classroom and his rooms beyond, but he was too hurt, and embarrassed, and angry. So he nodded tightly, and Malfoy left.

Harry didn’t see Malfoy until Sunday night. He looked better; still pale, but he was, after all, a Malfoy.

For the next several days, he and Malfoy were appallingly polite with one another. Harry hated it. He’d come to enjoy the camaraderie, the playful barbs. But he felt sick and angry every time he thought about the way Malfoy had insulted his living conditions and he wasn’t ready for anything more than a ‘good morning, Professor Malfoy’.

Well. Friendship had never really been on the cards, anyway.

In private, he obsessed about it all the way he had in Sixth year. He wasn’t sure Malfoy _had_ been having fun, all those years, out partying every weekend, and he was surprised he had been able to keep a job at St. Mungo’s when he had to have been perpetually hung over.

But maybe he had. Harry could have counted on one hand the number of people who had touched him intimately since he and Ginny had broken up, what felt like a thousand years ago.

And why his head kept mixing up ideas and images like Draco, and fun, and sex, and loneliness, he really didn’t know. Nor why his comments stung so hard. It was an attraction, and he’d had dozens of those. Easy enough to set aside when there was so much to do.

Fun.

He sat at his drab desk and stared at the broom in the corner and wondered if Draco was right. About some of it, at least.

And then came a Saturday afternoon when Harry, ensconced in marking seventh-year essays on the difference between shapeshifters and werewolves, heard a knock on his door. The classroom door; he had been taking great pains to ensure it was locked, just then, since he had a number of fairly nasty things about the place and no desire to let any student set them free.

He shivered. He’d let the fire die down. He tossed a quick charm at the fireplace to stoke the flames, and made his way to the outer door. It was Neville Longbottom.

“Fancy a pint?” he said.

Harry grinned.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he said. “Let me get my warm robes.”

The Hog’s Head was quiet; it was never as full as the Three Broomsticks, but also, the night was cold, and Hogsmeade was quiet in general. Harry spent a few minutes speaking with Aberforth, and, in possession of two pints of Abner’s Ale and two chasers of a rather lovely, almost ruby-coloured firewhiskey, he took a seat at the table Neville had chosen, close to the fireplace.

“Now, Harry,” Neville said, after he’d thanked him for the drinks. “Just so’s you know —”

The bell over the door rang, and Harry looked up. A handful of the other teachers had stepped inside. Professor Saltzman, who had taken over History of Magic when Binns had discovered quite abruptly that he was, indeed, dead. Professor Bennett, who had taken over Transfiguration when McGonagall had taken on the role of Headmaster. She was very clever. She reminded Harry of Hermione. And Draco. Of _course_, Draco.

_Malfoy_, Harry corrected himself.

“— Draco’s coming,” Neville said, hiding behind his pint. “And he’s very sorry for whatever happened. So be nice.”

“I’m always nice,” Harry growled into his pint, as if he was blaming it very specifically for all the ills of the day, and hoping it would shrivel and die. Moments later, their colleagues were sat at the table with them, celebrating the end of another week and the absence of students in the pub.

Harry had been cooking up a right snit, but it felt pointless, suddenly. He didn’t care about any of it; he was just happy for some good company in a warm pub. He was even happy to have Draco by his side, laughing and snickering and tossing out rude comments at every opportunity.

Professor Saltzman was the first to leave, citing a prior engagement with a sparkle in his eye. “His husband is a vampire,” Neville whispered as he left. “A rich vampire. Isn’t that the thing?”

Professor Bennett left shortly afterwards; she complained that she had to unbox thirty teapots for practical work the following week, which Harry thought didn’t sound like too much work, until she added that they were in a classroom that had fallen into disuse because of a doxy infestation. Harry promised to help her, if she didn’t mind him keeping the doxies for a class the following week. Professor Bennett accepted cheerfully.

Close to midnight, Neville, Harry and Draco decided it was time to turn in. Not exactly drunk, but very, very far from sober. At the door to the castle, knowing Neville was heading in the opposite direction to he and Harry, Draco pressed a small vial of a bright green liquid into each of their palms.

“Trust me,” he said. “Hangover cure. Best in the business. You’ll wish you were dead, for about thirty seconds, and then you’ll be fresh as a daisy — except you’ll stink, and you’ll need a good long shower.”

Neville beamed at Harry. “It really is,” he said. “G’night, Harry. G’night, Draco. Cheers for that.”

At the foot of the staircase, Harry and Draco said their goodnights. But just before he headed for the stairs down to the dungeons, Draco paused.

“You will take that hangover cure, won’t you?”

Harry’s lip curled into a small smile. Here they were; this was a step. Draco needed to know that Harry trusted him.

“I will,” he said, flashing it at Draco again. “I have a very strong feeling I’m going to need it.”

And _how_.

Harry woke up feeling as though a centaur had shat in his head. He lay in bed, utterly morose, until he remembered the little bottle. He had, conveniently enough, fallen asleep in his robes, so he shifted around until he found exactly which pocket was poking him in the hip, and he downed the potion in one go.

Merlin’s beard, it was disgusting stuff. Harry thought for a second that he’d been tricked. Draco had, in fact, poisoned him. His only comfort was in knowing that he would die, and become a ghost, and haunt the git forever. The fantasy only intensified for the thirty seconds that his pain, nausea, and regret intensified; and then —

“Fresh as a daisy,” he admitted out loud. “And really, daisies stink. So it’s fitting.”

He took a long, hot shower before dressing in plain old Muggle jeans and a t-shirt, tossing a hooded sweatshirt over the top. Sunday. He had some work to do, and he had been debating finding someplace to do some flying, and…

And, there was a knock on the door of his classroom. Harry glanced at his clock, panicking for a moment that he might have slept through to Monday, but no. He crossed the room, and opened the door, and froze.

“Potter,” Draco said. “You remember my mother.”

They hadn’t laid eyes on each other since Harry had spoken for her at her trial. “Mrs Malfoy,” Harry replied, offering Draco’s mother — his _mother_, what in Merlin’s name was she doing there — his hand to shake. She shook it, rather more warmly than he had thought she might.

“Narcissa, please,” she said, though her tone was no less formal than it had been.

“Er.” Harry wasn’t sure he could call her by her name, but he vowed to try, as uncomfortable as he was. “Is there something I can help you with, Mrs — Narcissa?”

Nope. Never trying that again.

“My understanding is that there is something _you_ need _my_ help with,” Mrs Malfoy said, stepping into the classroom. She walked swiftly down the aisle, her shoes clicking elegantly against the stones, and she opened the door to Harry’s room. “I see,” she said. “Well, I can work with this. Draco, darling, can you please make yourself very scarce, before Harry bursts a blood vessel?”

Harry quietly began planning Draco Malfoy’s horrifying and humiliating death. The plan was sketchy, but it definitely involved everyone Draco had ever met seeing his underpants.

“Alright,” Mrs Malfoy said. “Come in.”

Harry was fit to burst; no one invited anyone into his room without his say-so. And yet, as four people, two witches and two wizards, poured into his classroom and stood blinking in horror and intrigue at his room, he realised there was no point in arguing.

They had him.

_“Mr Potter — is it your testimony that Narcissa Malfoy, wife of a Death Eater and mother of another —”_

_“Draco Malfoy is no longer a Death Eater,” Harry had said, formally, with his eyes direct and his back straight. “He acted to protect his parents, and he has disavowed all connections —”_

_“Be that as it may. It is your testimony that Narcissa Malfoy lied to Voldemort —”_

_“She lied to Tom Riddle, yes. She told him I was dead. She made it possible for me to return to the castle to finish the battle.”_

_“Mrs Malfoy,” Shacklebolt had said, his voice booming. He loved Harry, and admired him, but Harry’s insistence on testifying for everyone he knew to have done something to redeem themselves, no matter how small… that, they disagreed on. “Under Veritaserum — do you agree that this is the truth?”_

_“Yes,” she had said, plainly. “I asked him if… if my son was alive. Draco. And he nodded, just the smallest nod, so no one else would see. And I told the Dark— I told…”_

_She had looked at Harry, then, and he would never understand what he had seen in her eyes. _

_“I told _Tom Riddle_ that Harry was dead. I knew he had saved my boy’s life, one way or another — and I didn’t want him to die.”_

_For a brief moment, Harry had wanted to put his arms around this woman. Perhaps she wasn’t perfect, but as her parenting skills — her capacity for love — were far greater that Aunt Petunia’s had been, and he’d felt a stab of jealousy. And gratefulness, because Draco needed to be loved as much as any of them._

_“There has been… too much death,” she’d said, and closed her eyes, and her chin had dropped to her chest. “I wanted it to be over.”_


	6. Chapter 6

Draco spent the rest of his day wondering how, exactly, Potter would get his revenge. Wondering wasn’t helping to calm him down, so he set about some work; first priority was brewing some Dreamless Sleep, since Potter was bound to need more, soon. Draco was surprised he hadn’t asked for more already. Dreamless Sleep, and then some Standard Antidote (useful to have plenty on hand, to adjust to whatever rubbish children were doing to each other these days) and he sat down to mark a pile of papers about the differences between various materials one might use for an athame or spoon.

Close to four o’clock in the afternoon, his mother opened the door to his rooms, and swept inside. Of course she was able to breeze past his wards; he’d learned them all from her.

“Pour me a glass of wine, darling,” she said, finding herself the most comfortable armchair.

“Is he looking to have me strung up?” Draco asked, trying to sound bored.

“I don’t think so.” She took the glass and took a large sip. “You might have mentioned you were in love with him.”

Draco spluttered his own glass of wine so badly he nearly choked. It took him a good two minutes to get his breath back. His mother spent those two minutes examining her nails and taking another sip of wine. And to compound his fury, embarrassment, and other emotions that were making his face go from pale, to pink, to tomato red and onward to something that was probably rather better characterised as aubergine, she didn’t even bother to follow it up with an apology, or a clarification, or anything at all that might predispose him not to surrender her to the Janus Thickey ward to live out her last hundred or so years.

“You got your inclinations towards the dramatic from your father, you know. The Blacks were never so theatrical.”

“I hope Aunt Bella heard you say that from the afterlife,” Draco replied, finally getting his breath back, and casting a quick cleaning charm on his shirt.

“Don’t misunderstand, darling. I am very pleased. I thought for a while that you might end up marrying that dreadful half-Veela boy —”

“Oh, don’t be disingenuous, mother. Blaise’s mother makes up at least one third of the gossip in Witch Weekly, and if you think I don’t know you subscribe, you sorely underestimate me.” His mother had the sense not to argue. “And what’s wrong with Blaise? He’s attractive, well-bred —”

“He’s entirely wrong for you. You are very high maintenance, darling Draco, and so is Mr… Zabini, is it?”

Draco rolled his eyes. Narcissa didn’t see, so as soon as she looked at him, he did it again. The second one was so dramatic it actually ached for a moment.

“We were talking about Harry Potter, who I am most assuredly not in love with. Did you convince him to let you cheer the place up a bit?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be back next weekend to finish up. And he’s on his way here to join us for a drink, so you might smarten your hair up a little. There’s plenty of time to discuss the rest.”

“There’s nothing to discuss, Mother,” Draco hissed, but he smoothed his hair back.

“I see a match, here, that could raise the profile of the Malfoy line, and — please hear me, darling, when I tell you this matters much more to me — one that could make you happy. I’ll leave you with that thought; he’s almost here,” she said, crossing the space and opening the door to greet him before he had even managed to knock. “Harry, dear,” she said, stepping back to let him inside.

Potter looked very much like someone had slipped a drop or two of Draught of Living Death into his Earl Grey.

“Er,” he said. “Hullo again, Mrs Malfoy. And Professor Malfoy.” He let himself be led to a chair, but was somehow unable to sit. Not the Draught of Living Death, then, someone had merely stuck a pole up his arse. Draco felt his lip curl; it was very satisfying, to see someone who had repeatedly beaten — and then _killed_ — Tom Riddle, someone who had faced off with a troll at the wizened old age of eleven, someone who had flown a broom through Fiendfyre, look so very much like he might throw up in the face of _interior decorating_. “Thank you for your help. The room looks very.”

Narcissa waited patiently. Draco saw the slight downturn of the corner of her mouth that suggested she was very disappointed to be back to ‘Mrs Malfoy’ already, but he guessed Harry wouldn’t adjust to something like that very quickly.

“I believe you’re missing an adjective, Potter,” Draco suggested guilelessly. Harry looked at him in wide-eyed panic. “Those are the _describing_ words.” Harry began to looked annoyed. “For example; the room looks very _civilised_. Or, the room looks very _masculine_ and _rakish_. Or if those all have too many syllables, you could just say _nice_.”

“Thank you, Malfoy,” Harry said, teeth clenched together, not actually snorting smoke like a dragon but near enough. He turned back to Narcissa. “I apologise, Mrs Malfoy. It does look much better. Very nice. I’ve never been very good at…”

Suddenly, Harry looked both younger and much, much older, unsure of himself. Draco felt his heart clench. What did a boy who’d grown up under the stairs know about good design, or how nice it was just for things to look pretty? Harry must have thought he’d ascended to Merlin’s Kingdom when he’d arrived at Hogwarts, with the big, comfortable beds, and overstuffed sofas, cushions everywhere. Draco could see it, suddenly.

Harry thought of _comfort_ as a _luxury_.

“You are most welcome. Just those finishing touches next Saturday, Harry,” Narcissa said. “Do sit down. This is elf-made wine, very fine.”

Watching Harry trying to relax enough to sit down was rather like watching someone break all their limbs in order to fit inside a teacup, but Harry managed in the end, and accepted the glass of wine without a great deal of protest. He still looked rather like he had itching powder in his knickers, but one thing at a time.

The following Saturday, Draco met his mother outside the school gates, where she had apparated with a chest full of Merlin knew what and this time, just two of her minions. Though it was still only early Autumn, the day was cool, and she was wearing one of her better fur-lined coats. Draco kissed her cheek, and took her arm, and led her into the castle.

“Is Harry not with us this morning?” she asked, cool and shrewd.

“He’s helping to train Seekers,” Draco said, trying to hide his disappointment. What he was disappointed about, he couldn’t have said. He’d never been asked to help train Quidditch. He wanted to see Harry’s spluttering red face when his mother opened that chest and took out whatever those finishing touches were to be. He wanted to see Harry flushed with pleasure and pink with the cool air, his hair damp with sweat and his smile natural instead of forced.

Merlin.

When had he started to think of Harry as _Harry_?

He got a number of his wishes right away, all in one go, late in the afternoon, when Harry stormed into his quarters with such ebullience and energy that it nearly stopped Draco’s heart in his chest. His eyes went very wide, as he took in the room — apparently, he’d forgotten that Narcissa was coming back to finish her decorating today and apparently, he liked it.

Apparently he was appalled to find himself in the company of a pair of Purebloods in his quidditch gear and drenched with sweat, as well. Though he forgot quickly, as he looked around the room.

It was horribly Gryffindor -esque, in Draco’s estimation, of course. Though his mother had managed to use the ruby tones as an accent instead of making it look as if a lion had actually puked up a spleen, the way the Gryffindor common room had always seemed to Draco. The golds and greys made up the majority of the colour scheme, actually, turning the remaining rock-hewn wall into a feature instead of allowing it to continue looking like a cell.

“Merlin,” Harry said, and though the happy smile had dropped from his face, his wonder was equally satisfying. Draco perched on the arm of a chair with a smug expression and his arms crossed over his chest.

“Harry, dear,” Narcissa said, sweeping majestically across the room to take his hand, and offer her cheek to be kissed. “What do you think?”

Harry only flinched for a moment before he kissed Narcissa’s cool cheek. “It’s beautiful, Mrs Malfoy,” he said.

“Narcissa, please.”

Harry nodded dutifully, his hand still wrapped around Draco’s mother’s hand, his green eyes still so wide. The large bed, with its soft coverings and thick blankets, curtains around it — was that not a bit juvenile, Draco had thought at first, but now he saw that Harry liked the idea of being able to close them around him to sleep, as if he was back in — _shudder_ — the Gryffindor dormitory. A dry bar, and a small tea service. Harry took another step inside, but he didn’t let go of Narcissa’s hand.

“I don’t need this much room,” he said, his voice sounding rather panicked.

“The Castle can accommodate it. Space is only space, Harry,” she said, taking her hand back and resting it on his shoulder. Narcissa was several inches taller than Harry even without her insistence on wearing the tallest heels that money could buy. There was something almost maternal in the gesture. “You could entertain guests. Adopt a family of kneazles — although I wouldn’t recommend that. They push things off tables, and those crystal tumblers are very old, fine Waterford crystal.” She seemed to sense Harry’s objection to owning anything that nice, and quickly moved on. “I would have liked for the three of us to have a meal together this evening but I am, unfortunately, otherwise occupied. A charity event.”

She made it sound as if it was nothing; something rich old ladies did with their time and nothing more. But she avoided Draco’s eyes when she said it. Something else for them to discuss when it was just the two of them.

“I must take my leave. Draco, darling, I have some papers for you to sign — will you take supper with me this week at the Manor — perhaps Wednesday? Eight o’clock?”

“I look forward to it, Mother,” he said, mentally compiling a list of all the things they needed to discuss. It was not a short list.

“I look forward to seeing you again, Harry,” Narcissa said, as Draco helped her into her coat. Harry was too lost looking around his room to help, but Narcissa didn’t look offended. Only pleased with herself, and sly.

“Thank you again, Mrs Malfoy,” he murmured, without meeting her eyes. “Travel safely.”

Outside the wards, Draco kissed his mother on the cheek.

“I think I failed to understand a great deal about that boy,” Narcissa said. “And presumed too much about the sort of man he might become.”

“I’m not in love with him,” Draco said, with much more force than he intended.

“Of course you are, darling.” Narcissa tightened her cloak against the cold air. “Don’t worry about a thing; I have everything planned out. I’ll see you on Wednesday,” she finished, and disapparated with a loud _crack_.

Salazar damn her, she might just have been onto something.

Draco found himself walking back through the castle in the direction of the Defence corridor, and Harry’s rooms. Well, room. His mother had been right about one thing; turning it into a suite would have had him choke on his martyrdom, and as nice as that might have been to watch, the chances were very good that he would have returned the space to its previously decrepit state rather than simply get comfortable.

Harry was standing in front of his desk, staring at — _ugh_. Draco cringed. There had never been a Malfoy, nor a Black, who had a particular respect for the privacy of others, but she had found Harry’s other photographs and framed them. Harry seemed to be spellbound, and only the sudden tremor in his shoulders told Draco that he was choking back a sob.

He stood for a moment, torn. Harry didn’t seem to have noticed him.

“I’m an Auror, Draco,” he said, with a sigh. “Trying to sneak up on me is rather like trying to teach a fire crab to sing. It won’t work, and you’ll annoy the fire crab.”

“I didn’t see that she’d found those,” Draco said. He couldn’t see the photographs, only knew that Harry had likely kept them tucked away for a reason. “I apologise, Harry. She shouldn’t have —”

Harry lifted a frame from his desk, and turned around, resting against it. He made a small, impatient gesture which made Draco’s heart flop suddenly, and Draco cautiously approached him, shifting alongside and leaning against the edge of the desk, peering over Harry’s shoulder.

There were a lot of people in that photograph who Draco recognised, and others who he could guess at. He felt ill. He wished for a fierce moment that he wasn’t a Malfoy, nor a Black. That he had known the warmth of families like these.

“Arthur Weasley,” Harry said, pointing. “He and Molly already had children — she was at home with them, but she still fought in every way she could. Just like at the Battle of Hogwarts. Neville’s parents. See how he looks like his mother?”

Draco felt sick.

“My Godfather. Sirius. I don’t suppose you ever met him, as a child, but I think he’s your uncle. Your mother must have known him. He was the only family I ever knew. Remus — look how gaunt he was.”

What possessed him to do it, Draco would never know — but he reached across Harry’s back, and settled a hand on his shoulder, and gave a small squeeze. Harry either barely noticed, or (and this was what Draco hoped for) didn’t mind. Maybe liked it.

“And that’s your father,” Draco said, pointing. “You look like him. But he was tall —”

Harry bristled, and Draco remembered suddenly that for years and years Harry had been hungry. Truly hungry, the kind of hungry you have to learn to ignore. The kind of hungry where you end up shorter than your parents, despite being so full of power that it rippled off you in waves, the way Draco could feel right now.

Harry shook himself and stood straighter, dislodging Draco’s arm. Draco fought the urge to fight back, wrap his arms around Harry’s body and pull him in, apologise, for everything Draco had ever done, and for everything that every Death Eater had done, willingly or not. But he kept his Pureblood, well-raised, Slytherin hands to himself and stood straight.

“I should get some sleep,” Harry said, placing the frame back on the desk and avoiding Draco’s eyes. Draco glanced at the clock. It was barely eight o’clock. He didn’t want to go. He wanted to hear things. In the most terrible way. He wanted to hear stories. About Sirius Black, his rebellious uncle. About the year Harry and Granger and the Weasel were off searching for Horcruxes. About his mother, whispering to Harry in the forest, wanting — needing — to know that Draco was still alive. He wanted to tell Harry what it had felt like when he realised that Harry was going to save him from the Fiendfyre. He wanted to hear about Harry’s godawful Muggle family, and feel angry about their abuse, and tell him so.

“I suppose,” Draco said. “Or —”

“I forgot to thank your mother,” Harry said, much too formally, and apparently having forgotten he’d thanked her several times. “I shall owl her before I go to bed.”

“She would love that,” Draco said sincerely.

And then he left.

Poor fucking Neville ended up bearing the brunt of Draco’s ridiculous mood. Poor fucking Neville, whose life at Hogwarts in the years before Draco had arrived must have been much more peaceful than it had been since. Draco had more or less dragged him from his quarters near the greenhouse down to the Hog’s Head and shouted at him for about two hours about everything that came to mind.

“Blimey, Draco,” Neville said, during a lull, when a buxom new bartender had brought them two flagons of ale, sensing very correctly that Draco had no need of more Firewhiskey.

“If you repeat one single word of this to anyone, I’ll hex you,” Draco growled ineffectually. Neville didn’t look concerned. “No, I’ll poison everything in the greenhouse and set all your Mandrake roots free.”

“Draco,” Neville said kindly. “Don’t get me wrong, but… I wouldn’t call you a _nice_ bloke, but you’re not up for doing that. Not these days. But nice try, good threat,” he added, with much too much enthusiasm, like he was trying to encourage a first year student who had just had a face full of Bulbadox juice. Draco let his forehead slam on the table in front of him.

“I hate being an adult,” he confided to the rough oak. “Don’t you miss being petty, Neville?”

“I was never petty,” Neville said. “My Gran would have…” he shivered. Draco frowned into the table, because he couldn’t imagine Neville’s sainted yet grumpy grandmother doing anything terrible. “She would have made her _disappointed_ face, Draco. You don’t know what that face can do to a man. Enough of it and your bones would melt, I reckon. It’s worked on me my whole life and it’ll work on me when she’s long in the ground and her portrait makes that face at me from the wall. Though I don’t see it so much, these days.”

Draco didn’t sit up. He mumbled into the table, instead. “When do you see it?”

Neville shifted in his seat.

“Neville,” Draco warned the table.

“I’ve been in love with Luna Lovegood since she brought me a pocket full of dirigible plum seeds,” Neville said, with a sigh. “She’d cleaned them up, and all, and showed me how to sprout them. But I’ve never even asked her to tea. I only see her when Harry has a party…”

“Potter has _parties_?” Draco sat up straight.

“Maybe twice a year,” Neville replied with a sigh. “Or he used to. Being an Auror kept him busy, but he’d invite the old gang around…”

Draco flinched. And then felt grumpy. Of course he wasn’t part of the ‘old gang’.

“So your sainted grandmother wants you to ask Luna Lovegood out on a date?”

Neville sighed, and nodded into his ale.

“I dare you,” Draco said. “I dare you to ask Luna Lovegood out for a proper date.”

“No!” Neville wailed. “She’s so important! A magazine editor — and I’m just…”

“One of the old gang, who helped to save the world,” Draco said miserably. He was going to need his own hangover cure in the morning. “_By her side_. I have to go. Ask her out, you utter git. She was mad about you in school. Or I shall come up with a better threat. One you’ll believe.”

Draco staggered to the fireplace and tossed a handful of floo powder into the flames.

“Draco Malfoy’s rooms,” he muttered, and he found his way to bed, and didn’t even bother to take off his robes.

Almost like old times, except he wasn’t stumbling into anyone’s bed. For a moment, before he fell asleep, he let himself imagine Harry laughing at his side.

Draco hated to admit it, but there were good things about his father being dead.

There were a lot of good things.

Some of them were big and obvious; he and his mother were free to disavow his actions, and as much as Narcissa had loved Lucius she had hated him, too, especially towards the end. Draco didn’t hate to come home, anymore, even though the walls held memories of things that could never be scrubbed clean.

But the small things, he liked those better.

The long dining table. Once, Lucius had sat at one end, and Narcissa at the other. Draco in the middle, miles from either of them. Now, he and his mother crowded one end so they could talk. And talk she did.

“We haven’t discussed courting in a long time, Draco,” she said, when the dinner plates had been cleared, and they were waiting for their dessert.

“Because it’s torture?” Draco suggested hopefully. Narcissa gave him a baleful look.

“It’s not torture. It’s _tradition_.”

“Is it still tradition once the family name has been sullied beyond all repair?” He hated the way his mother smarted at the words. “Alright. I apologise. Who did you have in mind? And please don’t forget that by tradition I can veto anyone you might suggest.”

“Really, Draco, you are impossible.”

“A terrible match for any sane woman.”

“You have never showed any particular interest in women,” Narcissa said drily. “Nor in the sane.” Draco choked on… nothing, literally nothing, as he had a glass of wine in his hand and had not yet sipped from it. “My first choice is always your happiness. And your first choice is Harry Potter.”

“I think it’s time I sought formal emancipation,” Draco said, though his voice was strangled and his face was pink.

“Do you really think I don’t know you, darling?”

Draco stared at his glass. He didn’t want to have this conversation. He’d very carefully skirted it for several hours with Neville fucking Longbottom only days before, though Neville had read him as easily as if Draco had written the truth all over his face.

It was true.

He was in love with Harry sodding Potter, with his stupid martyr complex and his tragic backstory and the things he’d done, the strength he’d had to do what was right no matter how difficult it was. He loved Harry, and he had since long before he’d taken the Dark Mark. He loved Harry at least as much as he hated him, wanted him more than all of that. Lived for his stupid smiles, when they were real, when they crinkled his eyes; lived for the moments of honesty between them, even when they were awful.

He rested his elbows on the table, his face in his hands. He felt a cautious press of a finger against his shoulder, and looked down. Lissie, one of the house elves. He had sewn her a dress whilst he was on house arrest, all of those years ago. Pricked his fingers dozens of times while he tried to master the simple housekeeping charms required. He’d made the dress from a pretty pillowcase he’d found, a sweet, soft blue with teal paisley in the background, overlaid with pink roses.

Trying to ease his conscience, of course.

She had accepted it, delighted, and declared herself a free elf. And then she’d gone back to work, refused to leave the house, the silly thing. She still wore it today, kept it clean and pressed and carefully covered it with a smock while she worked in the kitchen. And she had been very solicitous of Draco’s favour since.

Right now, she had three fingers of Dwarvish Scotch in a crystal tumbler for him. He smiled, and took the glass, and rubbed her head the way she liked. She preened, and wandered away, smoothing down the skirt of her pretty dress.

“He _hates_ me, mother. And if he doesn’t, it’s only because he’s learned to tolerate me. We need each other for work things, that’s all. My…”

Ugh, terrible. Appalling.

“My feelings have nothing to do with it. Now, can we please change the subject to something far more pleasant? With what charity are you salving your conscience this week? Or we could return to an old favourite, and you could remind me about my appalling behaviour in my early twenties.”

Draco’s mother fixed him with a glare, and Draco shut up.


	7. Chapter 7

“I didn’t say that.” Hermione spoke very carefully, and slowly, which made it sound like she thought Harry might not understand what she was saying. But Harry knew her much too well. “What I was trying to say — Ron? Would you like some more pie?”

Ron frowned at Hermione and then at Harry. “She’s doing that thing where she’s pretending you’re stupid for a while just to give herself time to come up with something else to say,” Ron said. And then, “Yes please. It’s good pie, ‘Mione.”

“Serve yourself, traitor,” she hissed. “It’s not that we don’t think you know how to have fun.”

“No,” Ron said. “You’re just — busy, is all. You’re a busy bloke. An Auror all those years and now you’re a professor, and you don’t have time for fun, I bet. But you know how,” he said again, eyes wide.

“Of course you do, Harry.”

These lying liars were lying, and Harry knew it.

“You two truly are unspeakably bad at this,” he said, and served himself some more pie. “To tell the truth, I think you might be right. I had those parties, what, twice a year…”

“Well, we threw them,” Ron said, with his mouth full of mashed potatoes. “And you usually arrived late and covered in something frightening.”

Bollocks. “You’re right. I don’t know how to have fun.”

“Well, what do you do in the evenings?” Hermione asked, helpfully. “In your free time?”

“I read,” Harry said.

“Wonderful! What are you reading?”

“Er,” Harry said. In all honesty he wasn’t a great reader. “Mostly homework. Some educational theory, for class planning. Or when I need to be bored to sleep.”

Ron and Hermione shared a look, and Hermione appeared to kick Ron under the table.

“You used to love chess,” Ron said.

Harry didn’t have the heart to tell Ron he’d never liked it all that much, just, Ron loved it, and Harry had taken a long time to get over the thrill of having a friend, someone who wanted to spend time with him.

“Chess. Yeah.” He nodded.

“You loved flying,” Hermione said, and Hugo fussed, and she went to pick him up out of his crib. It was comical, with her baby bump taking up the space that Hugo wanted to occupy, and Ron soon took over. Harry felt something huge and terrible lurch in his chest. “Quidditch. I’m coaching Quidditch. I fly.”

Hermione and Ron shared another look. Harry pretended not to notice.

“That’s great, Harry. Really,” Ron said, and Harry suddenly remembered he had papers to mark, and he excused himself, hugging them both before stepping into the Floo.

It was pathetic, really. The number of things Harry remembered actually enjoying. It became an obsession. Trying to remember things he did at Hogwarts that didn’t involve fighting Tom Riddle, or trying not to die. Or when he’d still been an Auror, working insane hours and grateful for a few hours of sleep.

“Professor?”

Harry looked up from his desk. He was collecting parchments of homework into something approximating a neat pile, and wondering why so many teachers demanded long essays when it just meant there was that much more work to do.

“Mr Combefort,” Harry replied. “Is there something you need?”

Jake Combefort, unquestionably one of the brightest students in Harry’s fifth-year class, with his shiny black skin and his red-headed mortal enemy in Slytherin, looked over his shoulder. There were a number of students standing behind him, including the aforementioned nemesis, and another dozen or so a little closer to the door, wary. They were from all four houses, which made Harry feel both unreasonably pleased, and slightly concerned.

“Well, er,” Jake said. “I was — I mean, we were wondering.”

Harry waited with his eyebrows raised.

“There hasn’t been a Duelling Club at Hogwarts in some time. And I know why, I do.” He scratched at his hand, a nervous habit he had. “Everyone wants us to feel safe, and that’s… lovely, I suppose, but — it still seems like a good idea, to me. There might not be Death Eaters anymore, but that doesn’t mean we might not have to defend —”

“Certainly,” Harry said, rising to his feet. “You want to start a Duelling Club.”

He felt almost dizzy. He’d loved duelling. He really had, and long before it had been a life or death skill. Take that, Hermione. Take that, Ron.

“I shall speak to Headmaster McGonagall,” he said. “And we’ll need to find a time when there are no Quidditch practices scheduled. I think it’s a fine idea.”

Jake turned with a disbelieving smile back to his classmates, and even the nemesis looked excited.

“Now, off you go to lunch,” Harry said. “And don’t imagine for a second that anyone who is not doing well in my class will be allowed to participate.”

That evening, by the time Harry was sitting at the Head table beside Draco, he was fit to burst. The afternoon had dragged on terribly, not least because he’d spent lunch time with Professor McGonagall discussing the possibility of a Duelling Club, and talking through the rules that would need to be set in place. He had been almost too excited to notice her expression, cool and appraising, and had dismissed almost out of hand her question of who might assist him.

There was only one person he intended to ask, and he felt very certain the answer would be yes.

Draco was already eating his supper, a book in one hand, when Harry took his seat. He was almost too excited to eat, but he was too hungry to ignore it, and he served himself quickly.

Draco didn’t look away from his book. And yet.

“You are much too pleased with yourself,” he complained, with a twirl of spaghetti cooling on the end of his fork. “It’s terribly annoying, Potter.”

“As are you, Malfoy,” Harry said cheerfully. It earned him a look with narrowed eyes. “Both pleased with yourself and annoying. Are you busy this evening?”

“Probably. If I’m not, I will make something up.”

“Good,” Harry said. “I need to speak with you. Your rooms, or mine?”

His face burned, suddenly, as Draco raised his eyebrows so slowly that entire continental shifts occurred.

“You old flirt,” Draco said, languidly. “Yours. I’ll bring the wine.” And his nose was back in his book, and Harry returned to his food, and pretended that Neville wasn’t boring a hole into the side of his head with that look.

On Harry’s other side, Professor Bennett took her seat. Her dark curls bobbed about her face.

“Bonnie,” Harry said, because Draco was right, and he was feeling much too cheerful and extremely pleased with himself. “How are you enjoying being Head of House?”

“Glad it’s temporary,” she said, conjuring her own meal, still prepared by the elves but completely vegan. It looked good, actually. “I don’t like the House system. We abolishe it years ago at Beauxbatons.”

Draco and Neville shared a look. Harry could feel them shift, and then back again.

Bonnie stirred the cashew cream into her lentil salad.

“Brave, Smart, Evil…”

“And Miscellaneous?” Draco added, helpfully. Harry snorted. Bonnie stiffened. Maybe it was time for the juvenile delinquents of the faculty to start rethinking the House system.

It was shortly after nine when Harry heard a knock on the door of his classroom and stepped out of his room to cross the cobbled floor and open the door to Draco.

“Don’t pretend you can’t simply flit through my wards,” he said, feigning boredom. Mostly because Draco was feigning it equally poorly as he leaned against the doorjamb.

“Unlike you and your dreadful Muggle relatives who didn’t even know how to treat family, let alone a guest, I have manners, Harry,” he said, pushing himself upright and almost floating in the direction of Harry’s quarters.

Harry felt that he should have been annoyed at the way Draco simply smoothed over what amounted to ten years of misery by being flippant but the truth was, he enjoyed it. Draco had no reverence for anything, and it was refreshing. Also, he was already making himself at home, pouring wine. Harry liked it more than he should have. He’d been so absorbed by his thinking that he’d let the fire dwindle, but he waved vaguely in the direction of the fireplace and the flames grew quickly.

“Well, spit it out. This had better not be you begging for remedial Potions lessons. As much as I would enjoy your debasement, I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done for your appalling lack of ability.”

“Don’t worry. I happen to know an exceptional Potions Master. Have I need for anything, I ask him.” Harry took a glass.

“Flattery will get you approximately six inches.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean you,” Harry said, hand on his heart, eyes wide. And then: “Six inches? I hadn’t taken you for a modest one, Draco.”

Draco’s eyes twinkled. And Harry wanted to kiss him.

He wanted to kiss him so hard that Draco got weak about the knees. He wanted to press his fingers over every inch of Draco’s pale skin, make him beg for mercy, make him beg for more. Wake up with him in the morning, naked and wonderful. He felt his cheeks warm.

Draco indicated a chair by the fire, as if this was his room, and not Harry’s, but Harry really didn’t mind. He turned the air so that he was facing Draco a little more, and after a sip of his wine, he set it on the end table (he had an _end table_. This was the influence of Malfoys).

“Some of my students approached me this morning,” he said. “About a Duelling Club. They want to start one again.”

Draco’s eyes widened, and sparkled. “I see. Brown-nosers. What does that have to do with me?”

Harry grinned. “Come off it, Draco. I need another teacher to help, and you can’t deny, we duelled brilliantly. We’re so different. You’re so agile and sneaky, and that’s really the only thing that works against…”

Harry hated to acknowledge that he had so much raw power. He hated that he even had it; the risks were terrible, and it was embarrassing. He briefly regretted having had this conversation at all. He rubbed his hands together.

“We’ll need rules, of course,” Draco said, and Harry’s chin snapped up.

“Does that mean you’ll do it?”

“Rules first, Potter.”

Harry sat patiently. Or rather, impatiently, and full of energy, and ready to gather up his favourite students immediately.

“First of all — no non-verbal magic, and no wandless magic. It’s not fair on the children. They can’t do it. Most of them have no chance whatsoever of ever mastering either of those things, so seeing it won’t teach them a thing.”

“I don’t —”

Draco looked pointedly at the fire, and Harry realised he didn’t even know where his wand was. Chastised, he closed his mouth.

“And there has to be limits. Nothing that will hurt them.”

“Of course,” Harry said. “And we’re not at war, Draco. This needs to be challenging, and fun, not frightening.” He sat quietly for a few long, drawn out moments. “You care about them, don’t you. The children.”

Draco sat up straighter a bristled. “Of course I do.”

“You don’t want them to get hurt.”

“Of course not!” Draco’s expression was dark, stormy. Harry knew in that moment that he shouldn’t say another word. He looked away. “Listen,” Draco said. “I’m not an idiot. I’m also not a child. Umbridge — my father told me to get on her side, and I came by my megalomaniacal tendencies honestly. And my eagerness for self-preservation.” He glanced at Harry’s left hand. The old, worn, white scars still read _I must not tell lies_. “And Snape —”

“Stop, Draco. Snape was a good man.”

“No. Snape did a good thing or two, and he was brilliant. Utterly _genius_. And he sacrificed a lot for the cause. But he was a bastard, and a bully, and I — _he_ didn’t need to be either of those things.”

All the energy seemed to go out of them at the same time. Harry was almost relieved not to have to hear what Draco might have said, had he gone on. They sat in a silence that began tense and settled into companionable over time.

“I have grown up, you know,” Draco said. “It would be ever so refreshing if you would try to remember that I don’t see the world the way I did when I was sixteen.”

On instinct, Harry reached across the space and briefly gripped Draco’s wrist. Draco tolerated it for a moment, and then busied himself rearranging everything from his knees to his robes, pulling away.

“Why me?” Draco asked, at last. “You could ask Neville.”

“Because,” Harry replied, thinking of Ron, of Hermione. “Because I think it will be fun.”

Mollified, Draco slanted his chin.

The Room of Requirement was never going to be usable again. The FiendFyre was trapped inside, and couldn’t escape, but it would burn for as long as Hogwarts stood. Harry and Draco spent most of the weekend trying to find a suitable location for the Duelling Club meetings. They needed mats. Space. Safety equipment. Eventually, in an almost lost wing of the castle, they found a large room that appeared to have been abandoned. Three very helpful elves promised to get the room clean in time for the first meeting the following Monday night.

And they did.

The first night, only students in fifth to seventh year were allowed. Harry and Draco had spent far too much time discussing various aspects of the way they would manage things, and not enough time thinking about how to keep the younger students out, but ultimately decided that there would need to be two clubs, a second for the second to fourth year students.

No one was interested in letting eleven-year-olds duel.

“Now, pay attention,” Harry said, to the twenty or so students collected in the room. He wondered if the group would shrink or grow over time. “There are rules to duelling. You are not here to defend yourselves against the forces of evil. We are not at war.”

He glanced at Draco as he said it, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Draco had so many regrets. He offered up a weak smile, and Draco adjusted his stance. Harry waved in the direction of the chalkboard.

“You may not use any spells, charms, jinxes or hexes that are not on this list. Anyone using a curse will never set foot in this room again, and don’t imagine for a moment that you will sneak one by without us knowing. The moment you stepped into this room, you had a brand new trace on you. No curses,” he reiterated.

Draco withdrew his wand, polishing it absently, and set his feet into a fighting stance.

“Right now, I will only say this: Defensive and Offensive actions are not a sum game. This is a chance for you all to figure out what you are good at. And Dra — Professor Malfoy and I will demonstrate first. Professor?”

“I simply can’t wait to put the Boy Who Lived on his arse,” Draco drawled, much to the amusement of the students.

“I simply can’t wait to see you _try_,” Harry replied, with a broad smile on his face. “On three.”

And it was fucking _wonderful_.

The advantages Harry had over Draco were significantly reduced by the fact that they had agreed that there would be no wandless or non-verbal magic; after all, it _was_ about teaching the children. But it really didn’t matter. It was fucking fantastic, and fun; Harry suddenly wavering terribly with a jelly-legs jinx, and then repelling a bat-bogey hex back at Draco, resulting in the students rolling on the floor with laughter.

They didn’t allow each other advantages; everything was a vicious battle of wills and joy and the students kept up cries of support. Harry and Draco kept their eyes locked on each other and Harry wondered a hundred times if his eyes were as bright as Draco’s.

It seemed unlikely.

“Alright,” Harry said, as he found his legs again. He was barely aware that Draco was holding him up, and laughing. “Find a partner, find a mat — and focus on jinxes and defences. We’ll move around the room and offer some help.”

At 10 o’clock that evening, Harry and Draco lay on the mats, students gone, both exhausted.

“I’m completely fucked,” Harry said.

“I forgot how much fun that is. Do you know how ridiculous you looked, on your jelly legs?” Draco rolled over and held his head up on his hand. “The Saviour of the Wizarding world.”

“Terribly embarrassing,” Harry replied, drily. “Very unlike you snorting bats. And can I remind you that I managed to toss a _Confundus_ charm at you that had you yelling at your feet? In what sounded a lot like _Mermish_?”

“Please don’t. I’m still a Slytherin, Harry. We’re like cats. It’s never a good idea to point it out when we do something less than dignified.”

“A-ha, but as with cats, it’s always terribly entertaining to point it out when you _do_ something less than dignified.”

“We also scratch.”

“As long as you don’t piss in my shoes, I think I’ll survive.” Harry crossed his arms under his head, and sighed. Draco was so close that Harry could smell his skin, the lingering fragrance of whatever cologne he’d put on that morning. The gaslights on the walls made the shadows flicker, golden and lovely, sharpening Draco’s cheekbones until Harry imagined that if he was to reach up and touch one he could cut himself.

They were staring at each other. Harry felt a flicker of something warm over his spine. Draco’s mouth was so close to his eyes, and he could look, couldn’t he? When he was smiling, Draco’s mouth looked —

“We’d probably best get some sleep,” he said, sitting up abruptly. He dusted off his robes, and pointedly refused to look at the expression on Draco’s face.

Draco sat up more slowly. “Indeed. Well, it’s clearly time for your beauty sleep, Potter. I roll out of bed looking this good every day, but you need all the help you can get.” He reached for Harry’s hand, and Harry pulled him to his feet. They walked the hallways in silence for a few minutes, until Draco needed to head downstairs towards the dungeons. And there was a moment. Harry wondered if he should offer Draco a cup of tea, or a nightcap, or…

“This was the most fun I’ve had in years,” he blurted, instead of offering either.

“That’s about the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Goodness, Harry. You need a hobby.” But he was smiling, with one eyebrow raised crookedly. “Or perhaps you need to get laid? I don’t want to cast aspersions.” He crossed his arms. “Bonsai. Have you heard of that? Strange hobby, but the little trees are interesting, and if you took it up, Neville would probably follow you around making heart eyes at you.”

“Do you have a hobby?” Harry asked, innocently. “Other than gazing at yourself adoringly in the mirror? It probably doesn’t leave you a lot of time for much else.”

Draco grinned wider. “Oh, I manage. I’ve charmed the mirror to remind me of how handsome I am while I do other things. Same time next week, Professor Potter?”

An errant curled bounced lightly over Draco’s eye, and Harry wanted to tuck it behind his ear. So instead, he stuck his ridiculous hands in his pockets.

“Same time next week, Professor Malfoy.” He nodded, and they parted ways.

“Gryffindor git,” Draco said, in a stage whisper.

“Slick prat,” Harry replied.

He slept well. Or better, at least.

Strange, though, how he was suddenly hungry for things that might make him smile like that. His mood lasted days, he was happier in classes, stopped worrying so much about getting it right and started running his lessons a little looser. The children laughed, he laughed, and his third year class, some of whom were utterly terrified of Boggarts, had a wonderful time turning one into things that made them roll about in helpless laughter. He was having fun. He _was_.

And he wanted more.

Late that Friday night, as he lay in bed, wondering when sleep might come, he found his gaze drawn to his broom.

He _could_ fly more often. He was still quite a good flyer. It didn’t have to be only for coaching Quidditch.


	8. Chapter 8

After supper on Friday night Draco met his mother for a drink in Hogsmeade. The weather was getting colder by the day. It would be a bitter winter. He kissed Narcissa’s cheek and pulled her chair out for her. They ordered mulled wine; it was very fine, flavoured with cinnamon and apples, cloves and cardamom. A little port to warm the blood, while the steaming glasses warmed the fingers.

“Veronique Pueplier says her daughter has joined your duelling club,” she said, when the niceties had been addressed. “I didn’t know you still had an interest in duelling, Draco — or did you agree for other reasons?”

“I agreed because I haven’t had a chance to put Potter in his place in over a decade, and I relish the opportunity. Which reminds me, I need some of those boyhood spell-books that are locked up in the attic. With all the silly jinxes. The cross-eyed jinx, and the one that turns ones hair into spaghetti, so forth.”

Narcissa smiled coyly. “I shall have them sent to you tomorrow.” She took a sip of the wine, and closed her eyes a moment, savouring it. An older couple paused by the table to give her a disgusted look, and she smiled aristocratically at them, before turning back to Draco. “Don’t, darling. We will never stoop to their level. Remember who we are.”

Still it made his blood boil. He clenched his jaw, but smiled beneficently when the woman turned back for one last scowl.

“That’s my boy. How are things with Harry?”

“I swear to you, Mother, if you make me talk about this I will move to New Zealand.”

“Well, that _is_ dramatic.”

“I think it’s fair to say that we are friends, at this point, and colleagues. Neither of us has committed bodily harm against the other, unless you count a jelly-legs jinx. We’ve even progressed to first names. Happy?”

“Are _you_?”

Draco gazed at the window. Outside, the sky was so clear that a thousand stars shone. All those constellations, all those grand old Black names.

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t have feelings at all. I remember when I was young, wishing I could be as poised as Father, as cold. I practised, you know. Looking in the mirror and trying to keep my expressions off my face. I thought I could do it, if I practised enough. Keep myself secret, the way Father did. And then the slightest thing would happen, and I’d lose my temper, or I’d get frightened, or I’d laugh until my sides ached…”

He crossed his arms on the table, and Narcissa patted his hand.

“Your father was not a happy man,” she reminded him gently. “I don’t want that for you. And he didn’t have his emotions under control as much as you think. He gave in too easily to the wrong ones, mind you. Certainly I never saw him laugh until his sides ached.”

Narcissa sighed.

“From the time you were eleven years old, it was _Potter this_, and _Potter that_. He’s taken up so much space in your head, it’s no wonder he made his way to your heart.”

“I don’t know I’m fit for any of this, Mother. Let’s be honest, I’m a bit of a twat.”

“Language, Draco.”

“Well, I am. And I’m a disaster, and the Dark Mark will never really go away, no matter how I mutilate it. He’s the hero of the Wizarding world, and I’m an ex-Death Eater. And one,” he added, noticing the clock above the hearth, “who needs to head back to the castle and get some sleep.”

“Keep November 1st free, darling. And to try to have a little fun this weekend, won’t you?”

“What’s November 1st?” he asked, frowning.

“I’ll bore you with the details another time.”

Draco helped her to the Floo, kissed her cheek goodbye, and walked back to the school with a head full of nonsense.

When Draco woke, the following morning, he had an almost unbearable need to fly.

It happened, sometimes. He loved the dungeons, loved sitting by his window and looking out into the green hues of the lake, the fish and tiny sea monsters that made it their home; he loved how safe and enclosed it all felt. But from time to time he felt suddenly oppressed by all of that, and he needed, on those days, to fly.

Students would be sleeping in. Breakfast was a lazier affair on Saturdays, served until the late morning, and he had no pressing need to do anything else. So he took his broom down from the hooks over his desk, dressed warmly, and set out into the castle. He saw no one but an old grey cat chasing a mouse in the direction of the Hufflepuff dormitories.

The morning was cold, and crisp, and the dawn was barely kissing the sky, when Draco mounted his broom and pushed off into the air.

There was nothing in the world that made him feel freer than flying, or younger. He didn’t bother with caution; it was much more fun to hurtle himself high into the sky, body crouched low against the broom so he could pick up some real speed. Draco could scarcely feel his face, the air was so cold; he could, however, feel that he was grinning.

He heard a whooping, and thought for a moment that it had come from his own chest.

No.

When he glanced left, Harry sodding Potter was coming at him at a terrifying speed, smiling from ear to ear; and just as Draco was starting to worry that Harry hadn’t seen him, he screeched to a dramatic halt, only a couple of feet away.

“Morning, Draco,” he said, and Merlin, was he a sight. His eyes were bright. His skin was pale with cold, his cheeks apple red; his hair, ludicrous at the best of times, was right then doing its very best impression of the whomping willow. His glasses were slightly askew, and Draco wondered how in Merlin’s name he was keeping them on at all, at those speeds. And Draco loved the way his name sounded, when Harry said it. Like an endearment.

“Morning, Harry,” Draco replied. “Do you come here often?”

“Not often enough,” Harry said, turning away. “Come on!”

This was the sort of rivalry they should have enjoyed at school. This was a better sort of feud. They shouted at each other across the sky, daring each other to dizzying heights of sheer idiocy; bragging and taunting and hurling vicious insults, almost skimming the top of the lake and making hair-pin turns of the sort Draco hadn’t even attempted since he was a seeker, about a thousand years (and one war) ago.

“The Portrait of my great-grandmother Lyra Malfoy moves faster than that,” Draco shouted, across the water.

“Is she trying to get away from your endless complaining? I can relate.”

Draco laughed, and shot out ahead of Harry, only to curse as Harry slipped past him, making a face, just barely avoiding a tree on the edge of the lake as he shot high up into the air.

By the time they landed again, a short distance from the castle, they were drenched with sweat, freezing cold, and laughing from the sheer fucking joy of it.

And Harry was almost too beautiful to look at, like that.

“I think my bollocks have crawled back up, I’m so cold,” Draco said. He was glad he’d remembered gloves, but his fingers still felt as if they might be frozen to the broom.

“Can’t have that. I remember the squeaky little voice you had in First Year. No one wants to hear that again.”

Draco barely registered Harry’s gesture before the Warming Charm enveloped him. He didn’t want to let out the treacherous, contented little moan, but he’d been caught unaware. He wondered if Harry even realised he’d done it. Perhaps, perhaps not. He was still smiling, but he looked wistful, as well, letting his gaze fall on the castle.

“You’re still a bloody brilliant flyer,” Harry said, turning back to Draco. Draco hoped the flush of his cheeks could be attributed to the warming charm, and not the sudden rush of want. He hunted around for an insult, something that would make Harry laugh, but when he opened his mouth, what came out was “Not too bad yourself. For a Gryffindor.”

“We should do this again.” This time, Harry met his eyes, and the hopeful slant to his chin made Draco want to step closer, bury his face in the crook of Harry’s neck. Or possibly wade into the lake and hope to be eaten by the giant squid. One or the other.

“We should.”

“Time to go and be adults, I suppose,” Harry said, reluctantly, but they both headed for the castle doors. Draco felt almost tipsy. Adrenaline, and joy, and the unfamiliar hum of Harry’s magic, which began to dissipate as they entered the warm castle.

“See you at breakfast,” Harry called, waving absently as he headed in the direction of his quarters.

Draco, watching him go, walked smack into a wall of history professor. A lewdly grinning wall.

“Merlin’s arse,” Draco said, frowning and looking up. He was six feet tall himself; the history professor was being simply _unnecessary_. “Alaric. Are you sure you’re not part giant?”

Alaric chuckled, his smile getting wider, and turned slowly and deliberately to look at where Draco’s attention had been. “Enjoy your morning?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Draco said, his cheeks burning as he dashed for the stairs.

Saturday night at the Hog’s Head, then, for a few pints with some of the other teachers. And Sunday, somehow, Draco found himself in Harry’s room, curled up on a comfortable armchair while they both marked homework, chatting from time to time about Duelling Club the following evening, and eating an early supper in front of the fire, thick-cut bacon sandwiches and boiled eggs, followed by Harry’s beloved treacle tart.

And then Duelling Club, after a Monday that seemed to go on forever. At least as entertaining as the one the week before, particularly when Harry (perhaps deliberately) flubbed his Shield Charm and Draco hit him with a dancing jinx and a laughing jinx in quick succession. He wasn’t even embarrassed when he hit the ground, still shaking, and sat up to tell them all he was giving Slytherin House ten points because Professor Malfoy had beaten him fair and square.

“I need an elf,” Harry said, at breakfast one morning. With a crack, an elf wearing a woollen hat and socks appeared, chattering away happily at Harry. Harry beamed at her and handed her a package that had just been delivered by a huge tawny owl. An enormous heart-shaped box, wrapped in bright red paper and decorated with pink and white ribbons.

“Hullo, Henny,” he said. “Can you please see that these are destroyed? Don’t let anyone eat them. Thank you. I’ll bring you another scarf next time I visit Hermione.”

She danced on the spot, nauseatingly praising the Hero of Hogwarts before vanishing with another crack.

“Are you _cracked_?” Draco asked. “If I’m not mistaken, that was an enormous box of chocolates — if you’re not partial, I assure you, Neville and I would have cheerfully polished them off for you. And anyway, you _love_ chocolate. I _know_ you love chocolate, because the last time we chaperoned the children to Hogsmeade, you inhaled a block of it that was almost the size of your head.”

He frowned.

“And you have an enormous head, Harry. I know people inflate it for you quite a lot, but there’s just no excuse.”

Harry’s eyes sparkled appealingly, for a moment. “Alright, Draco, next time I receive anonymous chocolates by post I will give them to you and Neville.”

“Better.” Draco sniffed.

“And the two of you can fight to the death over whoever sent them to me.”

“Yes. I — what?”

“Again, Draco — _Auror_. And something of an expert in the dark arts and defence thereof. If you think I can’t sniff out a love potion under a couple of layers of tissue paper and cellophane…”

He shook his head sadly, exaggerated. Draco frowned. Harry looked embarrassed. Draco frowned more.

“That happens a lot?”

“Er,” Harry said. Really, he should have grown out of that by now. No, he should never have been allowed to grow into it. Those rotten Muggles. “Define a lot?” And then he shook his head. “I’m only supposed to receive post from people I know personally. Sometimes something slips past, though.” He looked embarrassed, despite his good-natured barbs. “It’s fine.”

It really wasn’t; even Draco knew enough to know that sort of thing really wasn’t okay. He knew instinctively that saying anything of the sort would either turn Harry mulish or send him hiding. Best to stick with what he knew; being, as the saying went, _a bit of a prat_.

“You poor sod,” Draco said, at last, turning away. “Adored by millions. Free chocolate all the time. What a burden to bear. Next time the world needs saving, I’ll do it. Neville, you’ll help, won’t you?”

“I helped _last_ time,” Neville said, shrewdly, adding honey to his porridge. “No one sends _me_ love potions hidden in chocolate.”

“Everyone knows you prefer a nice dirigible plum seed or two,” Draco replied. He barely noticed when Harry pushed himself out of his chair, mumbled an excuse and slipped away.

“You’re still a bit of a prat sometimes, Draco,” Neville said calmly, not looking up from his porridge. And there it was.

“Thank you for that, Neville. I can always rely on you to state the bloody obvious.”

“Any time,” Neville said.

“I shall get you a thesauri-quill next time I’m in Flourish and Blotts, by the way; you need some new synonyms for prat.”

“Lovely,” Neville said, stirring the blackberries through. Draco pushed his own plate away, heading for the dungeons.

Of course, the whole… _chocolate debacle_ bothered Draco all day. For dozens of reasons. The first and in his mind the most irksome was that the entire concept of love potions seemed like a grotesque violation. No different to… to holding someone down. He also had to admit to himself that he didn’t like the thought of anyone sniffing after Harry that way. It was pretty pathetic, and also, it was Draco’s job.

There was something else, though, too. And since Draco couldn’t figure out what that might be, he decided that the best course of action was to show up unannounced in Harry’s room to make a pest of himself and pretend to mark homework.

Harry had, at some point in the last couple of weeks, modified his wards to allow Draco through. Draco had seized upon this as an open invitation to show up at any time, though he was carefully treading the line between charmingly irksome and just plain annoying. Tonight, Harry just smiled at him, and gestured at the teapot on the end table.

“It’s nice,” he said. “I think. It tastes a little bit like grass, but I’m told it’s very healthy.”

Draco made an appalled noise, but poured himself a cup anyway, and took a sip. Harry was right; it was nice, and also, it tasted like grass. Would wonders never cease.

“So what usually happens to your post, Harry?” he asked, and Harry shook his head, smiling.

“Same thing that happened this morning. But usually, long before I see it. You’re not going to turn this into some kind of thing, are you?”

“What, just because ex-Death Eaters hardly ever get secret love potions in the post? I’m perfectly happy with my cursed crystal balls and the occasional howler.”

“You haven’t had another package, have you?” Harry asked, looking up from his marking with a frown. “I thought your packages were coming to me, unless they were from your mum.”

“Mum.” Draco laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever called her that in my life. And no, I haven’t had any suspicious post. Unless you’d count a cashmere sweater from Belarus. It’s a lovely shade of green. You’ll remember I’m partial to green.” He enjoyed the way Harry’s cheeked burned. “Once a Slytherin, always a Slytherin. I’m sorry, did I interrupt something?”

Harry raised his eyebrows pointedly. “No, I just like to cradle this tosh in my lap from time to time. Next time I get chocolates in the post, I’ll give them to you, I promise. Is that really what you came to talk about?”

“Got your knickers in a twist? Calm down, Potter, I have homework to mark as well.”

Harry didn’t point out that Draco had a lot more space in his own quarters; he just Summoned a small ottoman from across the room for Draco’s feet, which was oddly touching.

What a _pillock_. What a fucking considerate arsehole. Draco smiled at him fondly.

Yes. This was very, very inconvenient.


	9. Chapter 9

Harry was absorbed in a book over breakfast. He had taken to reading because it made him eat more slowly, and he hated the way Draco still eyed him sometimes, looking to see if Harry would curl his arm protectively around his plate. Even if they were getting along well, there was a part of Harry that regretted, terribly, having told Draco about his childhood. It meant there would always be one big exposed nerve there, even if he trusted Draco not to poke at it.

He glanced up as the great hall filled with owls. It would never cease to be extraordinary to him.

He recognised Hermione’s owl, Spot (stupid Muggle joke, but Hermione loved her) and caught a letter in mid-air. A second owl, equally recognisable as Narcissa Malfoy’s magnificent old barn owl dropped a second letter, and Harry passed it to Draco without a thought. He opened Hermione’s letter. Full of the usual; with a photograph of Hugo, pregnancy details Harry could have done without, and an invitation to dinner in two weeks.

“Harry,” Draco said, from his left elbow.

“Hmm?”

“It’s for you.”

Harry sat up, and frowned, and looked at the envelope. “What does it say?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “I’m not in the habit of reading other people’s mail,” he said airily, thrusting the envelope into Harry’s hand.

Harry stared at it for a long time, and finally turned it over. Apparently, Mrs Malfoy had used the Black family seal. That seemed significant. “I don’t suppose your mother knows how to conceal a howler,” he said, uneasily. Draco only sniffed, and Harry opened the letter.

_My Dear Harry,_

It started.

Oh, how Harry wished he understood why Mrs Malfoy used his first name, why she was so friendly. It ruined all of his assumptions. He lay in his comfortable bed at night, looking around at the homey furnishings, and wondered why she would have bothered with such a thing. Even worse, why Draco might have asked her to. He loved it, _all_ of it, so very much, and still he couldn’t understand it. The soft couch and the beautiful curtains that surrounded his bed, the rug that felt like the softest, densest fur under his feet (and did occasionally almost seem to purr).

_You are cordially invited to a party at Malfoy Manor on the 1_ _ st _ _ of next month. Drinks will commence at 6 o’clock sharp, followed by dinner and dancing._

_Formal dress required. RSVP by return owl._

_Yours,_

_Narcissa Malfoy._

Harry stared, and turned the letter over, and handed it back to Malfoy, who read it with a frown and then (if it was possible) paled slightly.

“What’s this, Draco?”

Draco pushed the invitation back into Harry’s hand.

“Do you have formal robes?”

Harry did, indeed. As he had not grown one single inch taller since he was fourteen years old, he had his dress robes from the Yule Ball during Fourth Year, although he had broadened a lot in the intervening years and they might be snug across the chest and shoulders. But. Were they alright for a grown man? Were they still fashionable enough? He wished he didn’t owe Narcissa Malfoy anything. He had a suit, though, a Muggle suit, for when he needed to be undercover with the Aurors. Would that count? And who could he ask?

“Sort of,” Harry grumbled.

“Well, I’ll call my tailor in,” Draco said, like the enormous poncy git he was. He was smiling, though, and bumped Harry’s leg with his knee, under the table.

“I haven’t said I’ll go,” Harry retorted.

“I’m going,” Neville said, from Draco’s left side, waving his own invitation. “I’ll be delighted to go! Draco, will you let your tailor see to me, too?”

“Of course, Neville,” Draco said, cordially. “Just don’t forget to RSVP.” And then he stood up, and left. With a plate of fruit left to eat — and Draco loved fruit, Harry had found himself mildly amused by it, the sweet cravings Draco had even when it wasn’t truly dessert.

Harry returned to his breakfast. And his reading. No, he tried to. Both had become devoid of interest.

“Give him a break, Harry,” Neville said, softly.

“Give who a break?” Harry replied, transparently, and he left the breakfast table before he could see an expression on Neville’s face that he would have to interpret. “Oh, Neville. We’re getting along well, alright? Duelling Club, and… we’re using first names, and — and we went flying together,” Harry said, and wished he hadn’t let himself think about it. Or that moment on the grounds afterwards where he’d wanted to take Draco in his arms and snog him stupid. And tell him he was a disaster, and that Draco shouldn’t ever, ever look at him with his eyes sparkling in that way again, lest he be terribly disappointed with the outcome.

“Harry,” Neville called, and Harry clenched his teeth, and turned back. Neville looked like he was about to ask question, and then he changed his mind. “I’m sending both of our RSVPs back.”

Harry stared for a long moment, and then nodded hastily and left.

Of course, it was _no big deal_. A party. So? Harry had been to parties before.

And in the meantime, Harry was busy. Training four Seekers (he thought it was only fair to train them all, as he wasn’t the head of any house, and didn’t want to advantage anyone). He had seven grades worth of essays and assorted homework to read, and mark, and discuss with some students. Duelling Club, of course, and preparing for Duelling Club, and thinking about the sparkle in Draco Malfoy’s eyes at Duelling Club —

So it was _not a big deal_, and he didn’t have time to think about Draco, or parties, or anything at all.

Also, he had been practising charms that could make him appear to be ill, because the weekend of the dreaded Malfoy party was upon him, speeding towards him. November 1st, All Souls’ Day. He floo-called Hermione, who couldn’t talk about anything but her pregnancy. He floo-called Ron, who only wanted to fret about what would happen if Hermione was wrong, and it wasn’t a girl (“What if she just wants to keep having them, Harry? My parents had a thousand of us before they got Ginny — I don’t have the energy.”).

He conjured images of Ginny in his mind, trying to remember what it was like to want soft curves in his hands, and all he could imagine was a hard body, slim and tall and taut, wiry blond hair in tight curls around a prick he could only assume was as gorgeous as —

Fuck, he needed to get out of this.

But he stayed silent through his robe fitting, and tried not to smile at himself in the mirror (really, he looked _almost_ as if he would fit in at a party of this sort) and congratulated Neville, who had taken to begging Harry to help him practise conversations with Luna Lovegood.

He fire-called Hermione again, feeling ill. Some previously un-described mixture of anticipation and sheer bloody terror, because he had no idea what to expect.

“Come through,” she said. “I’m cooking, and I can’t sit here.”

Harry sat at the kitchen counter and watched Hermione mash vegetables for Hugo.

“You know I’m gay,” he said, abruptly and too loudly.

“Well,” Hermione said. “Yes, I suppose I do. I haven’t seen you so much as look at a girl since Ginny. Not that I’ve seen you look at too many bye, either, and… But I’m still glad you decided to say it outright.”

“Does Ginny know?” Harry said, suddenly miserable.

“Yes, Harry. What’s this all about?”

“If I fell —” No, fuck no. “What would you do, if I was dating someone you didn’t approve of?”

Hermione’s face softened, and she shook her head. She turned to the pantry and started searching around, her ever-growing stomach getting in the way. She pulled out a bottle of Bailey’s. Muggle booze. Harry’s eyes opened wide, and Hermione brought the bottle down to the coffee table. She poured them each a glass, and then cast a charm over her own to remove the alcohol.

“Tastes the same,” she said.

“Oh, good,” Harry said. Not really a response.

“You asked the question all wrong, of course. You do that. Tell me, Harry, why would I not approve of someone you were in love with?”

“Well,” Harry replied, wishing she’d accepted the other version of his sentence. “If they’d done something terrible, or… and I didn’t say in love.” Pedantic. He’d almost said it.

Hermione startled, and grabbed Harry’s hand, pressing it to her stomach again, the way she had before.

“Any day, now,” she said happily. “Fit to burst. Harry. We’ve all done things we regret, every single one of us. Some worse than others, but isn’t that all a matter of circumstance? Oh, she’s kicking again. She’s an athlete. She’ll play for the Harpies, you can bet. Or, if she’s a Squib, perhaps she’ll play football.” She looked up at Harry. “We all need to remember that there are no guarantees. About _anything_.”

Harry nodded, mute.

“Are you? Dating? You don’t really seem to —”

“No,” Harry said. “I’m no bloody good at it. And I’m a disaster, you know that. Not right in the head, and that was even before the war. Now I’m even more rubbish at things. And I — and he — I’ve mastered the art of a dirty weekend, but he’s really not the sort, and anyway, I don’t want that.”

“Not the sort?”

Harry bit his lip. “He’s a bit posh. Even if he is a git. He’s a posh git.”

“You’ve been obsessed with Draco Malfoy for almost as long as I’ve known you,” Hermione said, wistfully. “Perhaps not always for good reasons. I hear he has become a good man, though. Are you really so frightened?”

Harry swallowed, hard, and shook his head. And then nodded.

“I’m not sure it’s really something I should pursue,” he said, sounding more confident than he was. “I have obligations. I still consult for the Aurors… there is your campaign to think about. How would the voters feel about me being… And more importantly I have _students_. And anyway, I didn’t say it was Draco.”

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione said, and she sounded so sad Harry couldn’t look at her.

“And he _was_ a Death Eater.”

“You spoke for him at the trial. You know why he took the Mark.”

“He did terrible things.”

“He was _forced_ to do terrible things. And it was a long time ago. No one has forgotten. But most have forgiven. They’ve found a way to, because it helps them to feel better.” She shook her head sadly. “Harry — I feel like it’s been a hundred years since you’ve been really happy, and I don’t remember you doing anything for yourself since you gave up Quidditch. If you have a chance to be happy now, and you don’t take it — I’ll…”

Harry raised an eyebrow.

“I learned the bat-bogey hex from Ginny, and I’m not afraid to use it,” Hermione said flatly. And unnecessarily; they _all_ had learned it from Ginny, which meant it was a good threat, but invoked mutually assured destruction. Draco hadn’t, though. Which made it hilarious in Duelling Club, and… and there he was again. “For goodness sake, Harry. Put yourself first, for once. Malf— Draco. Isn’t Vold–– Tom Riddle,” she said, leaning back against the couch, and rubbing her hands over her belly.

“Say hullo to Ron for me,” Harry said, choking, and he disappeared into the fireplace in a green puff.

The new formal robes weren’t as painful as Harry had anticipated.

The party was much, much worse.

“I think I might be having a terrible allergic reaction to the universe,” Harry told Neville, strangled.

Someone should have told him; someone should have said. This was not just a party. This was courting. Pureblood families by the handful, all the girls decked out in dresses that probably cost a few hundred Galleons each, and men looking like they were determined to find brides amongst these beautiful girls who ignored them prettily. Harry, having no interest in finding a bride, felt as if he was marching to the guillotine. And he clearly had Malfoy all wrong. He burned with the humiliation of it.

The receiving line was awful. Draco shook his hand as coldly and formally as he would have shaken McGonagall’s hand, and Harry wanted to disapparate on the spot. But he found his place, sitting opposite Draco for dinner, and did his best to contribute something to the conversation.

He didn’t need to. It was awful, the way people fawned over him, barely letting him answer a question before asking another. The young woman to his right grabbed his thigh and whispered to him that she’d been thinking of getting a tattoo of his name on her —…

The bright spot was watching Neville and Luna. Harry tried not to do it for too long, but Neville shot him a delighted glance from time to time. Luna was wearing the most colourful dress at the whole party, unsurprisingly, and didn’t seem to give a whit that the other girls were looking down their noses at her for it.

The sudden rise of the music, and the way everyone stepped up excitedly, following the sounds to the ballroom, was a relief. Harry could leave. With all of the movement… he could leave, and this whole disgusting misunderstanding (as if Draco Malfoy could ever want him like that, with his ridiculous, disobedient hair, his Muggle clothes. With their entire sodding history sitting in every room they shared like a boggart in the corner. Draco had taken pity on him, and wanted to help him find a girl to marry) would be over. Like a gentleman, he ushered everyone in ahead of himself, and as soon as he had a chance, he headed outside to disapparate.

Nothing happened.

Merlin’s balls. He could go back and try to sneak into the fireplace. He could try to climb over the fence, and hope that the wards didn’t go too high.

He could hide under the balcony until it was all over.

“Harry?”

Harry spun on his foot, hand ready to wandlessly disarm his opponent, but it was Draco.

“Malfoy,” he said, with relief in his tone, and then seeing Draco’s face fall, he amended it. “Draco. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I didn’t recognise the signs. This is a _courting_ dance.”

He felt ill.

“You should head inside. Though I’d appreciate you lowering the wards so that I can leave.”

Draco looked at him with resignation, and then stood straighter. “Harry, do you not know how to dance?”

Harry felt himself bristle. “Of course I do. We all learned in fourth year, before the Yule Ball.”

“No, most of us learned shortly after we had mastered walking,” Draco said coolly, stepping closer. “You’re upset.”

“I’m not interested in… courting,” Harry said, spluttering, humiliated. What he meant was he wasn’t interested in a bride. “I get a dozen marriage proposals a week from witches I haven’t even met. I certainly don’t… what are you doing?”

Draco had taken Harry’s hand, and placed it on his shoulder. He had placed his own hand on Harry’s hip, before their free hands found each other. “You haven’t danced since the fucking _Yule Ball_, Harry? That’s just tragic.”

Harry wanted to die.

“It’s alright to want to fall in love,” Draco mused. “And be happy with someone. I wish I could hear the music better.”

Harry was barely even conscious of the wandless, non-verbal spell he cast to bring the music out onto the balcony. He instantly regretted it, when he saw that Malfoy was impressed. Oh, he would make some girl a wonderful husband, for three minutes before he rode his broom directly into a volcano.

“Just follow my movements,” Draco said, and Harry wondered where exactly the nearest volcano was. “When I step forward, you step back, and so forth. I promise not to dip you. I wouldn’t want all the blood to rush to your head and make you swoon.”

“I,” Harry said, his mouth and throat dry. “It was kind of your mother to… I just.” He looked down and tried to follow Draco’s feet. “I learned to lead.”

“You didn’t learn a thing. You were an appalling dancer,” Draco said, very reasonably. “And apparently, you still are. So _I’ll_ lead, and you can just follow.” He brought Harry closer, and Harry was powerless to resist.

“I’m not interested in finding a bride,” he said. “I… Malfoy, I shouldn’t be here,” he said, urgently, and with so much regret, and the almost overwhelming desire to embrace his inner Gryffindor and snog Malfoy silly, just so he’d know once and for all. “It was kind of your mother,” he repeated, and tried to pull away.

Draco pulled him closer.

Just how long _had_ he been Draco, and not Malfoy?

“It was kind,” Draco agreed. “She’d like me to marry, and be happy. I know it’s hard to hear, but once, she and my father were very good together. But my father wanted power, and my mother wanted… respectability, and happiness.” Draco slipped his hand from Harry’s hip to his lower back. They were almost flush together.

Worse:

Harry was starting to get hard.

“I should go,” he said.

“No, you shouldn’t,” Draco disagreed, letting his gaze flicker from Harry’s eyes, to his mouth, and back again. “Not everyone here is looking for a bride, Harry.”

The tip of Draco’s tongue slipped out to wet his lips, and Harry was mesmerised. He could — and then he’d… and he’d never kissed anyone before that he’d _really, really_ wanted to kiss. He felt like a fraud, in his fancy clothes. He wondered if he should remind Draco that he’d slept in a cupboard under the stairs for ten years and didn’t know which forks to use. That sometimes he wanted to vanish all of his nice furniture because he loved it so much and didn’t think he should really be allowed to touch it.

Draco held his gaze, waiting.

“I,” said Harry.

“Another sentence fragment. Do you need some help, Harry? A verb? How about, _I want_?”

There were wards.

Harry was powerful. Few knew exactly _how_ powerful. He could resist Veritaserum and the Imperius Curse. He was generally too polite to push hard against someone’s wards, of course. But right then? Exactly where he wanted to be, with the person he wanted to be with, his skin practically magnetised to Draco’s, and knowing that one way or another, he was going to ruin this?

Fuck the wards.

With a burst of desperate humiliation and precise intention he was back in his too well-decorated chamber almost before Draco could register that he had left. He sat on the edge of his bed for a long time, fighting the urge to punch himself in the face.

After that, Draco was painfully cordial.

Harry tried to take him aside after breakfast, several days later, but Draco jovially explained that he was Very Busy. Apparently he was Very Busy every day. Not too busy for Duelling Club, which was nice; but he was cheerful in a way that never reached his eyes, and never gleeful, never tossing an insult or showing off for the students.

And then, on Saturday night, when Harry arrived at the Hog’s Head with Neville and half of the faculty Draco was just on his way out.

He sat morose with glass after glass of Firewhiskey. When Neville eventually dragged him back to the Defence corridor, he pressed a vial into Harry’s hand.

Hangover cure.

“You’ll need it more than I will,” Neville promised, and he was right about that.

He even found himself getting terribly drunk with Professor Saltzman, the History teacher, one night. His misery seemed to amuse the man.

“Have you ever heard the crazy rumour that I’m married to a vampire?” Professor Saltzman asked.

“Might have,” Harry replied.

“It’s true. And _he_ turned my _wife_ into a vampire,” Professor Saltzman said. “Isobel Flamel. Obsessed with immortality. You might have heard of her, uh… dozens of times great grandfather.”

“If you have a point, please near it. I’ve lost drunk of how track I am.”

“Me too,” Alaric slurred. “Oh, but I did have a point, I almost forgot. The point is — I don’t know what’s with you and your, uh. Spindly potions master friend. But. Weirder things have happened. I guess it’s because of the…?”

Alaric waved in the general direction of his left forearm.

Harry frowned, and then understood. “What? No! No, it’s not — I couldn’t explain this to someone I knew, I certainly can’t make you understand. Why are we _talking_ about this? I thought we’d agreed to _drink_ about it.”

“Oh, I turn all kinds of wise when I drink. Really, I’m like Yoda, or some shit.”

Harry hadn’t even known Alaric was Muggleborn.

He woke on his bed fully dressed and wishing he had some hangover cure. Although he probably deserved this.

It was probably time to accept that things were just not going to be the same again.

It had been over a week since Draco had appeared at breakfast; and for dinner, he was so painfully polite and distant that Harry wanted to shake him. But he didn’t. Instead he was just as polite, and just as distant. Draco attended Duelling Club but never stayed to chat afterwards. He didn’t invite himself to Harry’s quarters to drink his tea and drape himself invitingly on the furniture.

Harry was _not_ making great strides towards accepting that things couldn’t be the same again.

And then when he was about to lose his mind on a cold Saturday in December, he walked out of the Hogwarts gates and apparated at the gate to Malfoy Manor. Neville had mentioned in a deliberately off-hand way that Draco was in Dublin visiting with Pansy Parkinson, that evening. It was possible that Neville thought Harry was actually keeping an eye out for Draco. It was equally possible that he was correct.

Blimey, it really was like Sixth Year all over again.

He wasn’t altogether surprised to find Narcissa Malfoy waiting for him on the front step, dressed in an almost silver fur coat, and with a pale blue shawl draped over her head and shoulders. The wards probably started a good distance from the Manor, for safety’s sake. She ushered Harry inside, and led him into not the formal living room but the _real_ living room. The room where people _lived_. It was surprisingly comfortable and while far from shabby, it was worlds away from the cool, threatening air of the rest of the manor. Harry felt at home immediately. And he really, really wished he didn’t. This room was like Draco’s rooms in the castle, he realised. He’d never quite noticed before that although the furniture was of good quality, it was also comfortable.

Also, he suddenly had no idea what he was supposed to say. This was not his world. He thought of Grimmauld Place. He realised he should have gone there, instead. Nursed his foolish wounds and reminded himself that he preferred to work than do things like courting, or getting maudlin with history professors, or… dancing with Malfoy in the moonlight.

“How do you take your tea?” Mrs Malfoy asked, waving a wand lazily at the tea service on the sideboard.

Harry almost said ‘triple distilled’, but instead he answered “Plain, please. No milk or sugar.”

A steaming cup floated gently into his hand. Earl Grey, with a slice of lemon. He hadn’t wanted to ask for that, but he was glad the lemon was there. He took a sip. “Thank you, this is perfect.”

“You prefer it with the lemon?” she asked.

“I do.”

“Then why didn’t you ask for lemon, Harry?”

Mrs Malfoy’s voice was gentle, and too kind and inquisitive by half. Harry swallowed a lump in his throat. What was he supposed to say? That he didn’t want to put Mrs Malfoy out, that he wasn’t sure he really deserved a slice of lemon? That taking up as little space as he could manage was the only way he was able to cope with the way his existence tended to take up far too much space in the world? How ridiculous.

“I didn’t think of it,” he fibbed politely. “I forgot how much I enjoyed it this way.”

Mrs Malfoy was too well-bred to comment on the bald-faced lie, and Harry found himself curling his shoulders inward. Once again trying to take up less space.

“What can I help you with, Harry?” she asked, and she really _was_ too kind, and it fucking hurt.

“I came to apologise, Mrs Malfoy. For leaving the party so abruptly. It was indefensibly rude of me.”

“Narcissa,” Mrs Malfoy said gently. “How many times must I ask you to call me Narcissa?”

“At least once more, Mrs Malfoy,” Harry said, unconsciously trying to press his hair into submission.

“I take it to understand that you disapparated from the front porch.”

“Yes.” Harry’s face burned. “And I —”

“Very impressive,” Mrs Malfoy said, and sipped her tea. “I use strong wards, and many of them are ancient, tied to the family lines. There are still people who would use any weakness in them to enter the grounds and do me harm. Or hurt my home. She’s still recovering from the occupation, of course.”

“I know,” Harry said, and now his ears had joined the party, burning hot and throbbing against his head. “I hope I didn’t do them any damage. It wasn’t my intention. She is a lovely manor.”

Mrs Malfoy waved the concern away. “They are untouched. Draco, on the other hand…”

“I need to apologise to him, as well. I didn’t know — I didn’t realise — that the party was for courting. I hope the rest of his night passed more pleasantly. I am sure that any young woman in the Wizarding world would be delighted to make that match.”

Mrs Malfoy waved her wand again, and Harry realised that it wasn’t lazy, just… elegant and economical. A plate of macaroons appeared on the coffee table. She lifted the plate and offered one to Harry, her expression expectant. Harry didn’t need a macaroon.

He took one anyway.

“I think he would have been a good deal happier had you stayed,” Mrs Malfoy said, quietly. “Perhaps growing up with Muggles taught you some sort of prejudice…”

“No,” Harry said, firmly. “No, I…”

“— My son is not an easy man to love. Nor was his father. But I loved him. Even when he was terribly wrong, I loved him. I wanted to leave, once — I believed the Dark Lord was…”

She smoothed down the front of her robes, and settled herself.

“The signs that the Dark Lor…, that _Tom Riddle_ was returning — they were all there. I wanted to take Draco and leave, hide in Norway or perhaps Hungary, where I know distant relations would have taken us in. But I couldn’t leave Lucius, and he refused to follow. He still thought Riddle was the answer to all of our problems. As if we truly _had_ problems. This commitment to the old Pureblood ideals! Completely ridiculous. The Pureblood family trees look more like shrubs. Like spiderwebs. It’s very fortunate we’ve not started seeing generations of children with extra toes or tails. And by the time dear Lucius saw that I was right…”

Mrs Malfoy turned to gaze on her husband’s portrait, hanging on the wall. He looked desperately sad, Harry noticed. As if he was listening to her speak, and felt such regret. Harry fancied his hand lifted slightly, as if to reach out, before he turned away, leaving only a sheet of white hair and the hint of a shoulder behind.

“Well. It was too late. And by then Draco wore the Mark as well, and I believed we would all die. If we’d left, I am sure he would have killed Draco and Lucius. If we stayed, we knew we had only the slimmest chance of surviving. It _was_ a chance, though.”

Harry felt painfully out of place, hearing such intimate thoughts, but he thought if he stayed respectfully silent, then that would be alright. Except the silence went on too long.

“I am sorry about your husband, Mrs Malfoy. I’m sorry about so much.”

Mrs Malfoy closed her eyes for a long moment, and then opened them again.

“My son was a petty, spiteful child, and then… trapped in a situation he had no way to escape. He did the only thing he thought he could do, embracing the image of the young terror, strutting around with his Mark hidden under his robes, talking about how we would usher in a new world. But he is a good man. He has been a good man for many years. I’d like you to try to remember that, Harry.”

Harry nodded swiftly. “I know. I’ve seen it. I still don’t understand why he thought I needed my room to be so… extravagant,” he said carefully, deliberately avoiding Mrs Malfoy’s look of disappointment. “But it was a kind thing to do.” He cleared his throat. “I think I’ve given the wrong impression, Mrs Malfoy.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not…” he started, hating the way his stomach tied itself in knots. “I wasn’t raised well, Mrs Malfoy. I wasn’t raised in this world, and I wasn’t really…” Wasn’t really raised in the Muggle world, either, was what he wanted to say. Didn’t know how to do this sort of thing.

Mrs Malfoy’s voice was terribly gentle, when she prodded him along. “What are you trying to say, Harry? Don’t worry about the words — just try to say what you mean.”

“I miss him,” Harry said, at last. “We were getting to be good mates, and I’ve gone and bollocksed it — er, made a bit of a mess of things, really. Do you think he’ll forgive me? Even if I can’t — do the other things.”

This was not a conversation he thought he should be having. Not with her. But since he couldn’t have it with Draco, there really wasn’t much of a choice.

“Harry,” Mrs Malfoy said, and Harry shook himself alert.

“I should go; I’ve taken up far too much of your time. Please, I can see myself out,” he said. “I wanted to apologise, that’s all. I didn’t mean to stir all of this up.” He stood awkwardly, and Mrs Malfoy stood as well. Harry’s desire to be elsewhere was so strong that for a moment he fancied he was going to disapparate by accident again. Merlin, but he needed to work on his involuntary magic.

“Thank you for visiting, Harry,” Mrs Malfoy said.

“Thank you for receiving me, Mrs Malfoy,” he replied, and kissed her offered cheek.

He managed, this time, to make his way across the grounds and exit through the gate. The cool air was so jarring, and so pleasant, so crisp and real — like a cold apple in the middle of the spring — that Harry walked for almost two hours before he apparated back to the castle.


	10. Chapter 10

Draco knew he had changed, in a lot of ways, and most certainly for the better. But there were things that had not changed, and among them, this:

He experienced rejection rather like most people experienced, say, a slow beheading with a rusty spoon.

Which is to say it brought out the worst in him, which was one of the reasons he so rarely put himself in a position to be rejected. He’d never had a relationship that lasted for longer than six weeks, unless you counted the fact that two or three times a year Blaise blew through town and the two of them would spend a dirty weekend fucking and sucking in every conceivable position, location, and combination. The faint hangover from the intensive presence of a half-veela in his home was worth it, but the arrangement was no more romantic than the one Draco had with his hand. His hand, as well, while not remotely as satisfying as Blaise’s marvellously athletic and flexible body, was much more reliable, and there was certainly something to be said for that.

If his hand ever _disapparated_ in order to avoid _touching him_, he wasn’t sure he’d survive the hour.

The entire thing had been foolish. Harry Potter was not a suitable partner by any stretch of the imagination — just _look_ at that hair. And he was such a Gryffindor. And he didn’t know how to have fun, and who could stand that for longer than a long weekend with Blaise?

The worst thing was the knowledge that Potter was even now laughing at him. Quietly, of course, internally. Externally he was turning sad, pitiful eyes on Draco and probably every time he tried to entice Draco to talk, he was really only interested in telling him that he was very special and would make someone a _wonderful_ husband one day. And then he’d go and visit Granger and the Weasel and tell the story and they’d all laugh until they had tears running down their cheeks.

Prats.

Draco disenchanted his window and looked out not into the fake starlit sky, but the lake. Glowing an eerie green, seahorses galloping their way across nothing at all, manes and tails flying out behind them. He heard the low sound of the giant squid somewhere in the distance — when it displaced enough water, there was a sound almost like a trumpet in the lake. Draco sat on the windowsill and looked out into the murky depths for a long time, trying not to think about it.

Because.

Because, there was a part of him that knew he hadn’t made a single mistake. He’d seen Potter’s gaze flick to his mouth, felt a hunger in him when they were close; Harry had summoned the music from the ballroom to the porch outside Malfoy Manor, despite resisting Draco’s efforts to get him to dance. And he’d thought it was such a good solution, too! Out there, with no eyes on them, he thought he might have been able to ease Potter from his discomfort.

And if Harry had kissed him —

No. Draco was never doing this again. He’d tried, he’d failed, and he was done.

Except he wasn’t, at all, and he rather suspected his mother wasn’t, either.

The following morning, stepping into the Great Hall, Draco beamed despite himself. The first of December, of course! Hogwarts Castle had decorated itself overnight, and it was snowing in the Great Hall, settling only on the Christmas trees, never landing on the ground, or on a student. The fireplace roared, and the scent of cloves was overwhelming. All students loved this, but Draco was always especially pleased to see the first years’ reactions. The first time they’d seen anything quite like it, and they’d stumble, wide-eyed, or stand stock still with their mouths hanging open.

Draco found his seat at the head table and nodded cordially to Neville and Harry. Harry had clearly elected not to come to Draco for more Dreamless Sleep. He looked rather like he hadn’t slept well since the night of the party at Malfoy Manor. Served him right.

“Did you sleep well, Professor Potter?” Draco asked, reaching for some fruit toast and marmalade. Harry almost choked, which was gratifying.

“Yes, thank you,” Harry lied. “And you?”

He did sound hopeful.

Draco offered a polite smile. “You’re so full of shit that those green eyes of yours have begun to turn a fetching shade of brown, Potter.” Neville snorted. “You didn’t tell me you were out of Dreamless Sleep.”

“I try to manage without it,” Harry said, quietly, and sounding very much like he was ashamed to have been caught out. “It’s not good to take too much.”

“It’s not exactly good to take too little, either. If your eyeballs are hanging out of your head from a lack of sleep, it’s probably time you swallowed your pride. No matter. I have some time tonight.”

“Would you like me to come…? And…”

“Supervise?” Draco raised an eyebrow. “No need. Unless you’d be more comfortable watching to make sure I don’t switch something out for Belladonna, I can manage myself. I’ll have one of the elves bring it to you.”

“Oh. Well. Thank you,” he said.

“It’s my job, Potter. I _am_ the Potions Master.”

Harry deflated, somewhat, and looked about to say something else when the morning owls flew through the windows, dropping letters and parcels everywhere. Draco caught a package with his own name on it, and passed it to Harry, who was still dutifully checking all of his parcels, and any latter addressed in an unfamiliar hand. Harry passed him back a letter with the Malfoy seal on the back.

“You can read, right? Only I’m not sure you should have accepted a teaching post if you can’t.” He handed the envelope back to Harry, who looked at it as if it might contain a Howler after all. “It’s addressed to you.”

“She’s not… not having another of those parties, is she?” Harry said, and Draco couldn’t tell if the expression on his face was one of hope or one of horror.

“Don’t be foolish. If any family had more than one a year the whole of society would assume they were trying to marry off a troll. The Bulstrodes are hosting the next one. Millicent has been married for years, but her younger sister is of age.” Draco spoke primly, and with feigned disinterest.

He tried to ignore Harry as he hesitated over the envelope. It felt like being students again. Watching Harry, trying to guess what Harry was thinking or planning to do, trying to interpret his body language. Until someone (usually Pansy) cast _Muffliato_ just to get a break from his loud, frequent overanalysis. Maybe he should talk to Pansy. He could spend another afternoon in Dublin on Saturday, he thought.

Harry opened the letter, and frowned at it.

“I really was hoping it would be a Howler this time,” Draco said coolly, and snatched it from Harry — because despite his insistence that he was not in the habit of reading other people’s mail, he really had no such qualms.

His meddling mother had invited Harry bloody Potter to Christmas Eve at Malfoy Manor.

Oh, he was going to give all of her fur coats _fleas_. He was going to pay the House-elves a million Galleons to leave the mansion. He was… _watching Harry Conjure a small piece of parchment and scribble a note_, tying it to Narcissa’s owl’s leg and feeding her a large piece of fruit bread, before scratching the back of her neck just as she liked, and calmly returning to his breakfast of… salt, and grease, and something approximating meat.

“Well?” Draco demanded.

“I told her I would be delighted,” Harry said, finishing his last piece of sausage. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me —”

He took the parcel that had been addressed to Draco, and held it up for a moment.

“I have post to check.”

And he was gone.

Neville stared after him for a moment, and then shook his head at Draco.

“You two,” he said, retuning to his bowl of porridge. “And you call me and Luna mental.”

“Careful,” Draco said softly, to a student in Potions that day before lunch. She was a nervous little thing. Born to Squibs and expected not to have magic of her own, she’d not been exposed to this world until her owl had arrived on her eleventh birthday.

Sometimes, her hands shook, and she was afraid of almost _everything_.

Amelia Hubbard was her name. In her first year, she had annoyed Draco rather a lot. He wanted to shake her, sometimes, and ask why she wouldn’t pay attention; but being as he was afraid that if he couldn’t curb his temper he would lose this teaching post, he carefully reigned it in. Within a few weeks he had cajoled her into trusting him a little bit, but she remained an appalling student, caught often between moments of such terror the she didn’t seem able to hear Draco, let alone do anything that had been asked of her, and then trying to catch up so quickly that she would miss instructions and misread ingredients.

Somewhere along the line his feelings had shifted, blast them. And he’d found himself remembering how his parents managed his own small catastrophes. How carefully his mother had made sure he knew he wasn’t in trouble, the way she’d talked him through the mistakes he might have made. And now Amelia felt like — _appallingly_ like — someone who mattered to Draco, in a very individual and personal way. _Ugh_.

“I can’t,” she said, now, miserably. “I can’t. Look how it bubbles, Professor Malfoy. It will splash me.”

Draco shushed her gently. “Not if you’re careful, Miss Hubbard. You need to add the lacewings one at a time and stir widdershins after each wing. Just once.” He glanced around the rest of the classroom, and everyone else seemed to be getting along, so he turned his attention back to Amelia.

“Done!” called a loud voice in the back of the classroom, and Amelia jumped.

It seemed to take a very long time for the cauldron to fall, which did give Draco enough time to Summon it slightly so it didn’t splash Amelia. That did, unfortunately, mean that it splashed all over his hands and over his trousers as well, some drops hitting his face.

The pain went far beyond the heat of it. Draco couldn’t figure out why, and anyway, he was trying to maintain what was currently passing for poise. Which was hard since he was seeing at least double, and every nerve in his body was tight as a violin string, shrieking for attention. He wanted to shout, yell, scream, perhaps cry.

But he could see what would happen. He saw Amelia’s fragile confidence vanish, going back to Bath to live with her Squib parents and never knowing the joy of letting her magic unfurl beneath her skin.

He gave Amelia, who stood rigid with horror, a smile. “_Scourgify_,” he said, waving a wand at all of the mess. It felt as if his eyes might be watering from the pain, but he widened his smile and patted her shoulder.

“We’ll try it again. Perhaps on the weekend, with no one around who might startle you. I have some seventh year students who sometimes do their own work quietly on a Saturday afternoon. I’m sure you’d be welcome.”

His hand was beginning to blister. The colour of the blisters was very worrying. And he was in too much pain to try to sort through it all in his head.

“Class dismissed,” he said. “You can all head to lunch a little early.”

As soon as the classroom door closed behind them, Draco collapsed in a heap on the ground, tears streaming from his eyes.

“I need a House-elf,” he said. One apparated with a loud crack, and squawked. “Get me Professor Potter.”

The alarmed elf only nodded once, and then disappeared again.

Half an hour later, the pain was undeniably beginning to subside.

Whatever wandless, non-verbal spell Harry was using to cool the blistered skin was working beautifully. The careful gestures would have been spellbinding even without Harry’s determined expression, but Draco watched him carefully, eyes flickering between his hands and his face, and wondered when he’d become ‘Harry’ again.

Draco was really going to need to have a word with his subconscious about that.

For now, though, he asked Harry why he had such a grasp on wandless and non-verbal magic.

“The Auror work,” he said, with a shrug. “Sometimes it’s safer to be silent. And sometimes you can’t reach your wand, or someone has taken it, or you’re in a full body-bind for one reason or another.”

“So that’s all.” Draco rolled his eyes, and elected against tasking Harry if his use of the present tense indicated that he intended to return to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. “Necessity is the mother of mastering the most difficult bloody magic in the world.”

“I didn’t have much of a demand on my time other than work. It was a way to pass the time. I don’t know. The focus was good practice. I don’t have accidents anymore. You know — accidental magic. Except if a nightmare is especially… anyway. Or at least… not as often.”

Draco didn’t ask if he was thinking of the moment he’d disapparated from the bloody balcony of bloody Malfoy Manor to avoid being kissed. He felt inordinately proud of his restraint.

Harry rolled Draco’s trouser legs up very gently, as Draco couldn’t really use his hands yet. “Not so bad.” He returned to the soothing spell.

“The magical part of the injury will slow the healing of the non-magical part,” Harry said. “This reminds me a great deal of a trap my partner and I stumbled into in Belgium.”

“You had a partner?” Draco didn’t know why he was surprised. He supposed that without Granger or the Weasel there, Harry would have insisted on being a lone wolf. Also, he was jealous, but he didn’t have to admit it out loud, and if he didn’t admit it out loud then it wasn’t ever going to be true.

“All Aurors have partners, Draco. And we often worked in groups. You look surprised.” He met Draco’s eyes for a moment. He could probably see the green-eyed monster lurking behind Draco’s eyes. Draco hoped not. All of this was getting ridiculously complicated without that to add to it.

“Who was your partner?”

“I had eleven, in nine years,” he said. “Apparently I’m not easy to work with.”

“I’m simply speechless with shock. You? You’re the very definition of easy-going, Harry. Who would find working alongside the Saviour to be challenging?”

He could feel the twinkle in his own eyes, and when Harry looked up to see whether he was being teased, or really criticised, he relaxed quickly.

“I know. And I never take risks, or run into something half-cocked —”

“Always the full cock with you.”

“Cock and a half, sometimes. I’m astoundingly good at paperwork, too, always ahead on that.”

“And your handwriting doesn’t at all look like you dropped a handful of spiders into an inkwell and let them run all over the page.”

Harry relaxed even further, and shook his head. “I’m surprised I lasted as long as I did.”

“I’m not,” Draco said, seriously again. “You’re the biggest idiot I’ve ever known, but you’re very brave. Which is the same thing, sometimes. You’re quick with defensive spells and you’re always trying to save everyone else, because you’re a sodding martyr, raised for self-sacrifice by Dumbledore himself.”

“How is it you managed to make all of that sound _bad_?” Harry asked, cocking his head.

“It’s my intonation. And even with all of that, and with how annoyingly bloody _nice_ you are, you’re not afraid to use a hex or a curse when you need to.”

Harry was quiet for a long time, and Draco let his eyes drift closed.

“Madam Pomfrey would have been able to handle this, you know,” Harry said, not unkindly. “Why did you call me?”

There was absolutely no good reason for it. But rather than fudge an answer of some kind or, worse, tell the truth — Draco ignored the question.

“I’m not going to be able to brew your dreamless sleep tonight. Not like this. So I need you to come back here and let me talk you through it. You can go, now, Harry. I’ll rest a while; I don’t have classes this afternoon and I’d like to sleep a little. Thank you for your assistance. Goodbye.”

He closed his eyes. He could feel Harry hovering. “It’s alright, Draco. It can wait.”

“No, I don’t think it can. Eight sharp,” Draco said, leaving his eyes closed. “Shoo.”

Eight sharp, Harry brought a light supper of finger sandwiches from the kitchen. Draco appreciated it. He hadn’t had the energy to head up to the Great Hall, even after a few hours of sleep, and he had missed lunch. And though his arms and face looked somewhat better, he hadn’t wanted Amelia to see him again until he was properly healed.

“Those finger sandwiches look to be _completely_ devoid of fingers,” he sighed. “You know I was a Death Eater, Harry. I do like a finger or two. Cured in salt and smoked with rosemary —”

“Your little friend asked me how you were,” Harry interrupted, placing the plate on the end table beside Draco. If he’d noticed that Draco’s wards had been shifted to allow him access, he didn’t mention it. He placed a glass of ginger ale alongside the plate, and sat on the armchair nearest. “I told her you were quite well. She thinks she’s in trouble.”

There was a question in Harry’s tone.

“She’s a little girl,” Draco said, reaching for a sandwich. “She doesn’t have confidence in herself and she was startled. Children should be able to make mistakes without the world ending, Salazar’s sake,” he muttered, before cramming a sandwich into his mouth. “I almost burned down Malfoy Manor as a child, when I found an old wand and tried _Incendio_.”

Harry blanched, and Draco cringed inwardly. No doubt a mistake like that would not have been tolerated too well by Harry’s Muggle family. He regretted his tone. A lazy wave of his wand set the tea service to brewing, and Draco focused on his sandwiches again.

Half an hour later, they were back at Draco’s work counter, and Draco was offering small pieces of advice as Harry prepared the ingredients — he was so slow at it, and Draco wanted to be frustrated. But he would look at the intense concentration on Harry’s face, and the shadows under his eyes, and remember telling him he was rubbish at potions and just like that he’d find himself speaking quietly, soothingly instead, as if he was helping little Amelia, and not the Boy Who Lived, Scourge of Dark Wizards, highest ranked Auror of his age in over three centuries.

“No need to be too precious about those,” he’d say. “Roughly chopped is fine; they’ll disintegrate in the heat very quickly. Press the side of the blade down hard against the seeds and it will be easier to slice them up. No, you’re not julienning those for a coleslaw salad, Harry, you’re shredding them. It needs to be rough to get the oil out.”

Harry nodded seriously each time, and Draco, for his part, pretended not to notice that Harry’s hands were shaking slightly and that he seemed to be waiting for a chance to say something that was on his mind.

Draco wanted to put that off, if at all possible.

Eventually, Draco stood, and peered into the cauldron. Satisfied, he gave Harry a thin smile.

“Turn the hourglass,” he said, and Harry did. “_Accio_ Firewhiskey.”

They were settled back into their armchairs a moment later, Harry staring into the flames and Draco pretending not to stare at Harry.

“I want to get your mother a Christmas gift,” Harry said, abruptly. “Do you have any idea of what she might like?”

“She doesn’t need anything. She has everything she could ever want.” It was a test; would Harry back down and show up empty-handed? If he did, Narcissa might stop meddling and declare him a lost cause. “I cannot believe you accepted that invitation, Potter.”

“I didn’t ask what she needed, or what she wanted,” Harry argued. He rubbed his eyes. “I asked what you thought she would _like_. It’s alright, Draco. I’ll figure it out for myself.”

Draco smiled smugly, and sipped his Firewhiskey. Harry didn’t touch his own, but a few moments later he moved to the coffee table —

“That’s not a chair,” Draco snapped.

“Hold your arms out,” Harry replied, refusing to rise to the bait. “They do look better. Just lay them comfortably and I’ll give them another pass. You should be right as rain in the morning. If you can avoid grumbling, and relax.”

Draco rolled his eyes in the most dramatic fashion he could muster, given that he was feeling quite cheerful. “Grumbling slows healing, does it then?”

“Naturally. Also makes me want to poke you in the eye with my wand.”

Draco grinned. Harry was much more fun when he was feeling snarky.

The hourglass trilled too soon. Harry looked up, seeming as startled as Draco was, and with some reluctance stood up to add the final ingredient. He didn’t even wait until Draco was watching. Perhaps he wasn’t rubbish at potions anymore. Perhaps Draco had unnecessarily helped the first time. Perhaps —

Harry siphoned the potion into several bottles that Draco had lying about, and without need of his wand labeled them all. The raw power in the air made Draco shiver, with fear, with want, with… bollocks to all of this.

“I’ll take some bottles to Poppy,” Harry said.

Draco shook his head. “I can do it tomorrow. I need to check in about the overall potions stores anyway.”

Harry hesitated. There it was again, something he wanted to say. But he didn’t.

“Thank you, Draco,” he said instead, and Draco felt something deep inside him quiver with need at the sound of his voice. “Send an elf if you are still sore in the morning.”

“I will,” Draco said, but his eyes were still on Harry’s face. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he feel the weight the air in the room? Why didn’t he come over and snog the life out of Draco and see what might happen next?

“Goodnight,” Harry said, with a small smile, and Draco watched as he tucked a vial of the potion into his robes and disappeared.

“Son of Salazar,” Draco swore. He stood staring at the door for a long moment, and then heard the unmistakable sound of one of the portraits clearing his throat. He glanced up at Severus Snape, and tried not to glower. “Oh, leave it, Sev,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “I know what you’re thinking. I know what you want to say.”

“Indeed,” Snape replied, adjusting his robes with an expression of boredom.

“I can do better, right? Find a nice Slytherin girl to —”

“Your interest in girls has never been especially notable,” Snape drawled.

“Then a nice Slytherin boy — I suppose you’d like to see me deliriously happily married to Blaise Zabini.”

Snape was silent, just raising one eyebrow and letting his lip curl viciously. Draco turned away, ready to lock the door to his rooms and imagine that Snape might find another painting to haunt.

“Draco.”

Draco turned around. He could never resist that particular tone.

“I’m not sure you could do better.”

“Fuck you very much.”

“Oh, you are as tiresome as a First Year Hufflepuff. I am trying to tell you that I am not sure there is anyone in the world quite so well suited to you. I believe the two of you could achieve extraordinary things together. Harry Potter, loathsome creature than he is, is a singular wizard, as are you. If anything so mundane as happiness appeals to you then you should know that I believe you could find it with him.” Snape raised his chain. “And if you tell anyone I said so, I will never grace this frame with my presence again.”

Draco stared for a long time.

“Is that a threat, or a promise?” he asked.

He didn’t wait for a reply. He just found his way to bed.


	11. Chapter 11

By the time Harry was back in his rooms he was in physical discomfort, he was so hard. He barely made it through the door before he was tossing his robes aside, unzipping his jeans and throwing himself onto his back on the bed with one hand wrapped around his cock, jerking furiously. He sucked the fingers of his other hand into his mouth and wet them just enough to make them slick against his nipples, the various other erogenous zones that he’d found over the years.

He didn’t miss soft curves, or breasts, but he missed having hands on him.

It was barely satisfying, lasting only a couple of minutes, and afterwards, despite the relief — Harry felt sad.

“Why do you use school owls?”

Harry looked down at a second-year Hufflepuff boy with an overbite so severe he reminded Harry of Neville, before puberty had swept him into the realm of the truly spectacular.

“I don’t have one of my own,” he said, trying the note to the leg of a school owl. The little boy had an owl of his own, and Harry was surprised to notice it was an Australian Boobook owl.

“I thought you were rich!”

The guilelessness of the very young was charming, always, but Harry’s heart clenched tight at the memory of Hedwig, falling lifelessly, and —… he closed his eyes.

“Your owl is very lovely,” he said, rather than cause the poor child irrevocable trauma. “What’s their name?”

“Aesop,” the boy replied, looking cheered to have the conversation. “He’s a good owl. My family lives in Australia. He flies a very long way, but he’s never once complained. And he brings me Tim-tams.”

Harry had no earthly idea what those were, but he smiled agreeably. He fed the school owl a morsel and whispered in her ear, and she was gone.

That Saturday, a little over half of the staff of Hogwarts accompanied the students to Hogsmeade. They had gifts and cards to buy, window displays to gape at, Christmas lists to write up. The only snow so far was the magical kind, landing conveniently on window sills and not on the footpaths. The day was full of altogether too much in the way of adolescent hormones, exam nerves, and the kind of homesickness that hits right before someone heads home, and when Draco and Harry stumbled into the Three Broomsticks to scoff some lunch it was only the briefest of respite.

“I suppose Firewhiskey is out of the question,” Harry grumbled, exhausted. Draco snickered.

“Come to my rooms later, I’m sure I can find something to entice you with.”

Their eyes caught. That had not come out the way that Draco had intended it, surely? And yet — he looked calm, and confident, and the way he held his upper body made Harry want to crawl under the fucking table and loosen those stupidly flattering trousers, suck until Malfoy couldn’t speak English anymore.

He did not do that.

“I might take you up on that,” he said, and the fact that he did not intend to must have showed on his face because Draco’s eyes flashed disappointment for a moment.

After lunch they returned to their duties. Amorous older students were paired off in various combinations in various dark corners. Harry felt terrible; Draco must have agreed.

“I feel like such a mean old grown-up chasing them away,” he mourned. “Do that Quidditch whistle of yours. We’ll get them all heading back to the castle.”

And Harry did.

He did not visit Draco’s rooms that night. He went to bed early, so he could wake early and head into Diagon Alley.

He cast a light Glamour.

Funny thing about doing that, though. Harry still hated the way people would rush up to him in the street and ask to shake his hand, offer their daughters in marriage, ask for an autograph or a photograph. But he hated casting a Glamour, because it implied that he was expecting it.

He wondered if there might be a future in which he didn’t have to think about it, in which people would just let him be. Students got used to him eventually because he was stern when he needed to be, a barrel of laughs when so moved, and so frustratingly normal the rest of the time — whatever ’normal’ meant these days — and because he refused point blank to discuss the war.

Adults, though?

And they could be terrible. If he tried to extract himself from a situation he wasn’t comfortable with, they still sometimes shouted and called him names, accused him of thinking he was too big for his britches.

He hated it.

The Glamour made his nose a little longer and turned it up at the tip, made his eyes brown, made him a little taller (though not enough so his trousers looked odd; for some reason, he’d never quite managed to master shifting his clothing without throwing off the proportions, and when he tried harder he got unpredictable results — unlike Draco, who looked like he tailored his outfit every morning in front of the mirror).

He was shifting his weight from foot to foot right outside Flourish and Blotts, when Narcissa Malfoy approached him, cool and collected.

“Narcissa Malfoy,” she said, ever polite. “I’m not sure we’ve met.”

“Er,” Harry replied.

“Oh, please, Harry. It’s a good glamour, but your posture is unmistakable.”

Harry sighed. “It’s just…” He waved in the general direction of, well, _everything_. Every_one_. He didn’t like to tell her that he was sick of being mobbed, that Glamours had been all that made his work as an Auror manageable. But he didn’t want to take the Glamour off and become the centre of attention, either. He could hear Draco mocking him from somewhere deep in the back of his head — no less brutally for one than the other.

“Well,” she said. “It is a busy time of year for shoppers. Perhaps you’d like to accompany me? I may be of some assistance. Mr Black.”

“Black?”

She nodded primly. “Sirius was your Godfather. It seems an appropriate moniker.”

Harry relaxed slightly. “Yes,” he said. “Mr Black, then. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance. Shall we?”

Mrs Malfoy raised her eyebrows expectantly and Harry remembered his manners, offering her his elbow. She nodded in silent praise as she slipped her hand around his bicep and let herself be led down the street. She nodded her hellos to many, stopped to greet a few. She smiled warmly at those who narrowed their eyes at her. Harry was impressed. She could have easily become a pariah. Or a hermit. Instead, she had already donated a significant amount of her wealth to very worthy causes and made everyone rethink her. He wondered if his own words at the trial had helped, and immediately felt like a wanker.

“You are looking for Christmas gifts, Mr Black?” she said, without glancing at him.

“Two in particular,” he mumbled in reply. “I don’t suppose there is anything that _you_ would like, Mrs Malfoy? Something pretty that has caught your eye?”

She sighed. “I would like very much for you to start calling me Narcissa, but I have long since stopped believing in miracles.” She was silent for a while, leading Harry into store after store and finding nothing that interested her. Harry purchased gifts for the Weasleys, and Hermione, for Teddy and Andromeda.

Finally, Mrs Malfoy led him into a store Harry wasn’t familiar with. Three more steps and they would have been in Knockturn Alley, which explained that readily enough; had he ventured this far down in the presence of Molly, she would have dragged him home for sweet tea, a cool compress and a very earnest lecture.

“So many beautiful old things,” Mrs Malfoy said, with a sigh. “So much old, old magic.” Her attention was caught by a clasp for robes, and Harry made a mental note.

“I’m rubbish at gifts,” Harry admitted, with a sigh. “D’you suppose Draco needs a… a new snitch, perhaps? One of those ones that comes ack when you call it?”

“A delightful gift for a school chum,” Mrs Malfoy replied, her voice dry. “I had hoped you might have found your way to seeing things differently, with a little time to think.”

“It’s not —,” Harry said, and ran out of steam.

“You really are prone to letting your sentences trail off.”

“Draco is my _friend_, Mrs Malfoy. Something I hadn’t thought could happen in a hundred years.” He paused to examine a strange bronze statue that was flexing its muscles and adjusting its hair. “It’s not something I’m prepared to risk for… something I know I’ll get wrong. I’ll do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing — I don’t know how to be… I don’t know how to _be_.” And it _was_ a complete sentence. He didn’t know how to be. No one had taught him. “I don’t know the forks to use. I don’t know how to dance. I don’t know how to show someone I care about them, except by throwing myself in the path of danger to keep them safe. I couldn’t be a good… I wouldn’t be good enough for… and anyway.”

“Oh, Harry.” She tipped her head to the side and took his hand. “I don’t know where this all came from. But even if you hadn’t saved my son’s life, along with the rest of the world… you’re perfectly adequate just as you are.”

Harry found himself smiling. “Perfectly adequate?”

“Yes, that’s what I said. Perfectly adequate.” He smiled, and cupped his face in her hands. “You don’t need to have been raised well. You don’t need to know about salad forks or how to dance. You don’t need to have this extraordinary magic rippling off you. You’re perfectly adequate.”

Harry’s smile broadened.

How funny.

He’d been so many things, in his life. A nuisance. The terrible nephew who attended St Brutus’s School for Incurably Criminal Boys. The Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, a liar, an attention-seeker, the Saviour of the Wizarding World. Something wonderful or something terrible and never anything in between.

“No one has ever called me adequate before,” he said, and he laughed. Narcissa moved her hands, cradling his skull between them and kissed his forehead.

“I’ll take my leave,” she said. “No more mixed messages, Mr Black. If you love my son, then try, and let him help you try.” She dropped her arms and her face shuttered, and she was at once the prim aristocrat he’d first seen so many years ago on platform nine and three quarters.

“Mrs Malfoy,” he said, as she stepped away. She turned to meet his eyes. “Thank you.”

“It doesn’t matter what you give Draco for Christmas,” she said. “He’ll love it.”

He watched as she stepped out into the cold street, buttoning the top of her robe and plucking her gloves from her pockets to slip them back on.

“Can I help you, sir?” the shopkeeper said, emerging from between two aisles.

“Yes, actually,” Harry said. “I’d like this clasp. And I need some advice, while you have a moment.”

The day after the last of the term was outrageously busy. Hundreds of students to send through the Floo network or to send home on the Hogwarts Express. A handful were collected outside the gates by parents who used side-along apparition or had organised a Portkey.

And then suddenly, the Castle was oppressively quiet.

There were fifteen students staying behind; four Slytherin, seven Ravenclaw (three related), and two students each from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. There were a handful of staff as well, including Harry and Draco. Without discussion they assembled at the Ravenclaw table and feasted heartily. Harry sat by Draco, and Draco didn’t pull away when their thighs touched. He was barbed, and quiet, and affectionate, endured the gentle teasing of the students and laughed when the headmaster made her very festive hat light up with fireflies.

And then Harry went to the Burrow.

The first best thing was taking Rose into his arms. She was much smaller than Hugo had been, but no less interested in the world. Hermione had been right (really, when wasn’t she?) and Rose’s skin was as dark as Hermione’s, and her hair was red, though not a Weasley red — it was rich and dark and stuck out in all angles, curling this way and that. She was also significantly sleepier than Hugo had been at her age, content to nap on anyone as long as she wasn’t poked too much.

Harry didn’t think he could ever be a parent. He’d had no good role models. But he thought that he had the knack of being a Godfather down quite well, having known Sirius for at least a few years. Teddy seemed to have no complaints, and nor did Hugo or Rose.

Harry didn’t move from the couch, with Rose in his arms, for a long time. He realised fairly quickly that he wasn’t the best company. He couldn’t get out of his own head, and the only person who didn’t seem to be concerned about that was Ginny. She had a hundred stories to tell, of matches all ove the world; Brazil, Australia, the USA (“they call Muggles NoMajs!”), Kenya, Denmark. She babbled about the Seeker on the German team whom she had been seeing for the last few months, kept everyone laughing, and left space for Harry to help Molly in the kitchen.

Molly had been the closest thing Harry had to a mother in his entire sodding life, and he didn’t know how to tell her that he would be spending time at Malfoy Manor the following day.

“Er,” he said. Like a fucking idiot.

“Oh, Harry,” she replied. “Hermione and I are thick as thieves, you do know that, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” Harry spluttered. “It wasn’t my intention, I just…”

Molly was quiet, blending the pudding ingredients, and then she pushed the bowl to Harry. He wasn’t sure why she didn’t have the spoon set to mix the batter itself but he enjoyed doing it.

“It’s very, very easy to hate someone forever,” she said, pouring cream into a bowl. “Much too easy. It’s hard to forgive them and impossible to forget the things they’ve done. What’s harder still is to stand up and acknowledge all of the hardest parts, the worst of someone… and love them anyway.” She flicked her wand and a beater leapt up to whip the cream.

Harry just stirred and stirred, tossing in a few extra cherries when Molly was pretending not to watch him.

“I’ve been invited to Malfoy Manor for Christmas Eve,” Harry said, awkwardly. “But I’ll be back the next day. Or, no, I’ll be back that night, of course. By Floo.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll miss the noise,” Molly said, with a tight smile.

“I will,” Harry replied earnestly. “Molly… if I… you’re my family. You know that, right?”

Molly sighed, and turned to Harry, wrapping her arms around him. “Of course, Harry, dear. And you always will be. I just need a minute to adjust. I thought I’d have you for a son-in-law, you know. But you have to do what makes you happy. You know that’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.” She kissed the side of his head, and suddenly he felt like he was twelve years old again, when he’d craved this sort of affection and didn’t know how to accept it.

“Thank you,” he said, into her shoulder.

At three o’clock in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, Harry took the scrap of parchment that Narcissa’s owl had delivered that morning. He could apparate outside the wards of Malfoy Manor, but without the parchment he couldn’t use the Floo.

“Harry, darling,” Mrs Malfoy said, taking his arm to help him out of the fireplace. “I’m so delighted you could join us. Please, Draco, bring our guest to the parlour.”

Harry didn’t know why he was surprised to hear voices, and laughter. Of course it wouldn’t be just the three of them. He wondered if his clothes were alright, and then he saw Draco, dressed immaculately in tailored trousers, a white linen shirt that was too well-behaved to crease and a waistcoat.

“Harry,” he said. “Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas, Draco,” he replied, stepping forward to shake the offered hand. “Are you enjoying your break so far?”

“Yes, thank you. I’ll be heading back to Hogwarts in two days so that Professor Bennett can spend some time with her family in Nice, but in the meantime, it’s been quite pleasant.” He was very formal, but this house always seemed to demand it.

“Happy Christmas, Narcissa,” Harry said, taking Narcissa’s hand to kiss. He didn’t fumble on her name. He’d practised.

“Oh, Harry,” she said, with a very wide smile. “Thank you. And thank you for coming.”

The party was small, but the guests too polite to make a fuss of Harry, much to his relief. He took a seat on the end of a sofa once he’d been introduced to everyone (Draco had snuck him a memory spell to recall their names, which was very helpful, as he would never have been able to keep them straight in his head otherwise).

A House-elf approached Harry with a tray of drinks.

“This is Lissie,” Draco said. “Lissie, this is my friend Harry. He’s a Professor at Hogwarts, same as me.”

She smiled broadly and curtsied. “Master Harry. Lissie is pleased to be making your acquaintance.”

“Your dress is very pretty,” Harry said, surprised that she was wearing one at all. “Happy Christmas, Lissie.”

“Lissie is a free elf,” she said proudly. “Master Malfoy is making Lissie’s dress. Is Master Harry wanting a butterbeer, or a firewhiskey? Or some wine? Or mead? Or —”

She had a lot on her tray, and Harry had to remind himself that House-elves were enormously strong. He took a butterbeer, and then thinking at the last moment took the firewhiskey as well, knocking it back and returning the glass with a wink.

“I hope no one saw that. This isn’t exactly my crowd. Did she — you _made_ her _dress_?”

“Don’t look so appalled, Harry. You know I was on house arrest for a year while the rest of you were nursing Hogwarts back to health. I mastered a few spells. I was desperately bored without you to taunt.”

Harry grinned, and shook his head. “You’re a big softie, Draco Malfoy. But how did you get her to accept it? Kreacher gets so cross — I have to keep Hermione away from him, he’s sick of being lectured about servitude. I got him to accept some old blankets, but if I try to pay him or give him clothes he goes into a right snit.”

“Kreacher,” Draco repeated, frowning. “Oh, Kreacher? He’s still there, in Grimmauld Place? He’s about three hundred years old, Harry, he’ll think you’re trying to force him into retirement. Don’t torture the poor thing.”

“I’m not trying to torture him!”

“Tell me you took down all those heads. Creepy as fuck, they were. Terrified me as a child. And old Walburga —”

“Heads are gone. Walburga is curtained, since she has a permanent sticking charm of some kind on the back. I’ve thought about cutting into the wall, but the house gets so cross with me. I can’t have Kreacher _and_ my house angry at the same time.”

Draco laughed, and stretched his arms over the back of the sofa. “I’m surprised anything you come in contact with isn’t cross with you. You are, after all, the King of the Gryffindor gits.”

“It’s good to be King,” Harry agreed. “I have gifts. What should I…”

Draco flicked his wand, and the collection of gifts that Harry had brought in one of Molly’s carpet bags found their way under the tree. “Don’t be vulgar, Harry. I know you were raised by wolves, but half the point of gift-giving — at least amongst snobs like these — is to sneak them under the tree as subtly as possible, argue that they’re only a trifle, and then spend the next year complaining about how no one else spent as much money as you did. But I see you’ve been sensible — that looks like a tin of Molly Weasley’s biscuits, if I’m not mistaken. Wine…” He cocked his head.

“Stop trying to use legilimency on the paper, Draco, it’s very vulgar.”

“Ah, but you can’t prove I did it.” Draco waggled his eyebrows. This was the friendliest they’d been in weeks, and Harry had to wonder if Narcissa had told him to behave.

Thing was, he didn’t look like he was trying to behave.

“Come on. You haven’t seen around the manor. Let’s leave the old people to their politics.”

It was a maze, it really was. Harry knew for certain that he would never find his way around the place alone, but he had to assume he’d never need to. Many of the doors were heavily locked and warded, entire wings closed and when Harry thought about the things that had happened here he knew he’d never ask.

As they walked, Draco pointed out a few rooms in particular. “The library,” he said, opening the door; the gaslights responded to his presence, and Harry took in a breath. It was almost the size of the Hogwarts library.

“Hermione would probably have a stroke and die if she saw this.”

Draco shrugged. “Invite her sometime. Mother wouldn’t mind. It’s not like someone as obsessed with books and reading would hurt anything in here.”

Eventually they made it to the… third? floor of a small wing and Draco opened the door.

“I admit Harry Potter,” he said resolutely. “I warded this when I was a child. Came in handy that… _that_ year. I told them there was no way to let anyone in, and for some reason, they believed me. Meant I could escape.”

Harry wanted to say… something. Anything. A murmured apology. Or perhaps ask some questions. But the tightness in Draco’s jaw told him it wouldn’t be welcome; it was just something he’d needed to say out loud.

He led Harry to a small parlour with a writing desk and some bookshelves — fiction, Harry noticed to his surprise. One door led to a bedroom (Harry, embarrassed, stepped away from it) and another to a bathroom with dimensions that made no mathematical sense and had a bathtub about three times the size of Harry’s old cupboard.

“Your rooms?”

Draco nodded. He seemed slightly strained.

“It’s nice,” Harry said, emphatically, and almost apologetically. Draco waved his wand at the ceiling, and the bright winter night sky was suddenly visible through the magical equivalent of a skylight.

Draco had opened a drawer, and he was staring into it, looking almost green (the effect of someone almost paper white actually getting paler) and strangely perturbed. After a long moment, he shrugged, and withdrew a small package wrapped in gold paper with a big white ribbon.

He turned to Harry, holding it in his hand.

Harry held his breath, and then forced himself to behave like a fucking adult. He slipped his hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t fidget. Draco looked as if he was struggling with something and Harry had made the last few weeks difficult enough.

“I invited you to a courting dance,” Draco said, finally meeting Harry’s eyes.

Harry nodded. “And I was a right prat.”

“No,” Draco answered, frowning. “A prat would have laughed at me. You… you were… I think you were afraid. And there’s more than one reason that could have been. I’m curious as to which it was.”

“Oh.”

“I perfected my… Muggles call it ‘gaydar’ but I don’t really know why. But I perfected that the year after my father died, when I was busy being famously terrible in the papers. So I don’t think I got that wrong.”

“No,” Harry said. He looked at his shoes. They were not the sort of shoes that worked in Malfoy Manor. He wished he’d polished them.

“And then I thought perhaps you just didn’t like me that way.” He stepped closer, and let his gaze run over Harry’s body, slowly. Too slowly. “But unless you had a sausage stuffed in your knickers I don’t think that was the problem.”

Harry burned red, and covered his face with his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry the most chaste dance ever invented by Pureblood wizards got you hard, Potter?” He didn’t wait for a reply, just took another step nearer. Harry wanted to step back; this close, the height difference made him uncomfortable, and too warm, and somewhat inclined to disapparate again.

“No, I…”

“And then there’s my third theory, which is just that you had a shit childhood living in a cupboard and eating whatever leftovers you were allowed, and then spent seven years being treated like a weapon, like a living fucking sacrifice to save the world — a job which I assume you didn’t think you’d survive. And then you joined the Aurors where you worked eighty hours a week. And you have no fucking clue what you’re doing, and you assume you’ll fuck it up.”

There was something so appealing about Draco’s mouth when he swore.

“What I don’t understand is why you think I could possibly do any better.”

Harry clenched his fists.

“_Blood traitor. Mudblood_. I used those words, Harry, and I meant them. I might have taken the Dark Mark out of sheer fucking terror, but I was a ferocious little arsehole long before that. My father taught me about blood purity like it was a simple fact of life. I hurt people.”

“Stop it,” Harry said, finally taking a step back. But Draco only took a step forward.

“I’m not the same,” Draco said evenly. “I know most people think I’m just toeing a line here, Harry, but I’m not. I was wrong.”

“That’s not —”

“No, you git. My point is that we’re both fucked up. Beyond the telling of it. Vol— Tom Riddle made a mess of both of our lives. You’re not different to me. And I invited you to a courting dance because I want to court you.”

Harry laughed uncomfortably. “See, I don’t even know how to —”

Draco handed him the gift. Harry stared for a moment and then took it. He untied the ribbon and tucked it into his pocket, and then he tore the paper off.

“Mother doesn’t believe that this is a lost cause. I’m giving us one last chance to find out if she’s right or not.”

Harry stared at the knife in his hand; the handle was a snake, and the blade was carved with runes. As Harry stared at the handle, it flexed its wings. Not a snake; a Wyvern.

“As far as we know, it’s the oldest Malfoy artefact in existence,” Draco said, as if it meant nothing. But his fingers twitched.

“Why, Draco?”

Draco bristled.

“Please,” Harry said. “I just. I want to understand. We feuded for years. I almost killed you in Sixth Year, with that fucking awful curse. I don’t understand. I really don’t. And I hear you, I do, I hear what you’re saying, but you’re wrong. I _am_ the bigger disaster here and I…”

He pulled his own gift out of the air, realising too late that it meant that he had summoned it through several walls, wandlessly and without a word. Draco seemed to have become accustomed, though. He held Harry’s eyes for a long moment, and then unwrapped the gift. It was a book. A small book, a _Muggle_ book, with a handful of pictures, none of which moved.

“Before… well, the Owls, and Hagrid, and finding out that I was a Wizard, I wanted — I needed magic to be real. It was an escape. And I could borrow from the library, because it didn’t cost any money and they couldn’t… couldn’t _stop_ me. And I don’t read well.” He flushed. “I don’t, and I read slowly, and for a long time it felt like the letters would change and flip about when I looked at them, but… I loved magic. I _love_ magic. And this book is why.”

Suddenly it seemed like such a crappy present, but when Harry managed to meet Draco’s eyes, he didn’t look like he thought it was a crappy present. He looked… intrigued. Even awed.

“Thank you,” Harry said, with the knife in his hand. “It’s beautiful.”

“So is this,” Draco replied, raising the book before his hand lowered again, in stages, like he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“I have something else for you,” Draco said. Harry wanted to sink into the carpet. This gift was far too much all by itself, even worse compared to his own. He wanted to argue, but he’d learned enough about Pureblood etiquette — even the simple Wizard courtesies — to know to keep his stupid trap shut. He swallowed hard.

“Sometimes I just don’t know who you are,” Harry said. “Or who _we’re_ supposed to _be_.”

“Shhh,” Draco replied. He didn’t move his hands. He didn’t touch. He just leaned down a little, his lips dry, and pressed a kiss to Harry’s mouth.


	12. Chapter 12

The funny thing about the kiss was how remarkably calm and unremarkable it was; just a warm, dry press of lips. A test. In Sixth Year Potions, Snape had taught them a spell which showed them what the base of a potion was; there were only a handful of bases possible, and discovering how a specific potion was brewed required first and foremost finding out precisely what the base was. Few had mastered the spell, but Draco had mastered it on his first try, and in the seven years he had slaved away at St Mungo’s, he had improved and perfected it. Just a simple spell, producing a ribbon of light that would shift subtly depending on what a potion contained. Ideal for discovering the identity of an unknown brew. An essential first step in healing something that had not yet been identified. He’d gone much, much further with it; he could use a slightly altered version to discover the base of a poison that was rushing through a person’s veins. Or that was present on a dead body, even down to skeletal remains.

It wasn’t obvious and it wasn’t easy and it required interpretation. Was the base water, or distilled water, or the water of life? Was it a mercurial base? Dry ether or one of the precious oils? You needed to be able to read the colours and the thrumming and all the rest of it, or you’d get it wrong, and you might kill someone, and Draco had so many fucking regrets in his life that a mistake made when someone was already vulnerable was an impossible risk.

This kiss felt like that.

This perfect, dry, warm brush of lips was meant to test the base of it. Lust, or curiosity. Boredom, or friendship. Or love, perhaps, a true match. Draco ended the kiss, pulling an inch away and feeling rather than seeing Harry chase it for a moment, his eyes opening; the brightest green Draco ever wanted to see.

The base?

Draco inched closer, and kissed him a second time.

Harry made a sound in the back of his throat, and Draco felt his arms twitch. He wanted to reach out and slip his arms around Harry’s body, but he didn’t; it felt for all the world like he was trying to entice a frightened cat, though Harry was neither easy to frighten, nor skittish, ordinarily.

Skittish he was, just then.

The boy who had walked to his death at the hands of a Dark Lord in the forbidden forest was now trembling in the face of a kiss.

Draco let his nose graze against Harry’s nose, and stole another kiss, this time letting his tongue press curiously against Harry’s lower lip. Harry opened his mouth, after a moment, and Draco felt Harry’s hand slip carefully to his hip. Did he even know? That he was pulling Draco closer, even as he trembled, and seemed to want to pull away? Was he aware of the soft dance of their tongues, the hungry way he was coaxing Draco nearer?

“Draco,” Harry murmured, and Draco was lost. Because he _did_ know. His eyes were open, darting from Draco’s eyes to his mouth as they broke the kiss again, clutching at his hip, his other hand slipping from Draco’s forearm to his upper arm, to his shoulder, to his neck, into his hair, bringing Draco closer and making him groan with need.

He could have tossed Harry down on the bed, in that moment, and demanded anything, anything at all, and Harry would have given it to him. He could feel it. But he didn’t want just anything. Harry might have been considerably more discreet than Draco, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t known for having spent a good number of messy weekends with random men all over London.

Draco didn’t want to fuck Harry.

No, he did. _But_.

Mostly, he wanted to marry him. He wanted Harry sodding Potter, Gryffindor git and all-around speccy wanker, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, with his reckless power and his terrible childhood under the stairs to be his partner and his husband. To share their rooms in the Castle. To go to sleep with him and wake up with him and press behind him when Harry made tea. To bend Harry over his own desk and fuck him ruthlessly until Harry was sobbing and babbling; to hook his legs over Harry’s shoulders on their wedding night.

And he could feel it — the way Harry wanted that too. The pull of his magic, the way his skin sang. The frustrated little murmur when he chased the kiss a second time and found Malfoy had stepped away. The set of his jaw, the quickening of his breath. But he didn’t step closer. He didn’t reach out, or smile, or tease. He looked, in fact… quite miserable.

“This might be a good time to say something, Potter. Anything at all.”

“Yes,” Harry said. His eyes were wide and dark. “I’m not very good at this.”

“I am rather brilliantly observant, Harry, perhaps you’ve heard. And you’re right. You’re good at most things, but this — no, you’re not very good at it at all. I seem to remember that the last time I got close enough to try that you disapparated through about a thousand years of wards to get away from me. It’s the sort of thing one doesn’t forget in a hurry.”

“I —” Harry said. “Yes.”

“Well? Because — if I’m wrong about this, which I’m not, I’d appreciate you saying so right now. There’s a rather fetching young wizard due to join the party any minute now, and if I’m not getting into your pants at some time in the near future, I’ll set about trying to get into his.”

Harry smiled. “Liar. You wouldn’t.”

And he wouldn’t. No, if Harry was looking to reject him a third time, he would retreat to lick his wounds for a year or two and then let Mother arrange him a match.

“You’ve changed so much,” Harry said.

“I shall take that as a compliment. I was a right little tosser.”

“You could have anybody you wanted. Someone easy. Undamaged. Me, I’m still a mess. I have nightmares, Draco. If I’m not paying close enough attention to my emotions, which by the way are all over the shop on a good day and downright dangerous on a bad one, I spew accidental magic like a toddler. I —”

Draco frowned, and then narrowed his eyes, and laughed, and frowned again, and Harry seemed to shrink away, his expression wary but resigned.

“Harry Potter,” Draco said. “Are you honestly trying to explain that you’re not _good enough_ for me?”

“Er,” Harry replied.

“I’m an ex-Death Eater with an enormous ego and a family legacy of insanity and cruelty.”

“You’re much more than that,” Harry said, and there he was, ready to sacrifice his own little slice of misery to cheer Draco up, like some kind of a fucking Gryffindor. Good grief.

“I’m a disaster. You’re a disaster. We duel like maniacs and what I lack in your raw power I more than make up for in hard-earned skill. We both survived the fucking war. _From the front lines_. We saved each other’s _lives_, Harry. More than once.”

“We did, didn’t we,” Harry said fondly. His shoulders had relaxed, and he smiled a little, and he took a step closer again. Draco stilled him, taking his hand, and Harry’s smile faltered.

“I won’t be your long weekend, Harry,” he said, quietly. Might have been a better note to start on. “I won’t be your winter fling. You should know that. There was a reason I invited you to a courting dance, and it has nothing to do with waking up to a wet patch on the bed and a thank you note scribbled on a piece of parchment.”

“Oh,” Harry said, embarrassed again. “You know about —”

“You must know Peregrine Derrick is the most indiscreet man in the whole of Britain. I cannot believe you shagged a _Beater_. A _Slytherin_ Beater, no less.”

“Well.”

“Appalling.”

“Are you done?”

“Seekers do it better. At least according to Derrick.” Harry’s face burned. Draco rather enjoyed it; Harry had a number of rather excellent looks, but squirming in discomfort about his sexual history was one that Draco thought he’d like to provoke more often.

“Draco.”

“Yes, Harry?”

“I don’t want you to be a long weekend. But the rest — I don’t know what I’m doing. And I’m not saying that to be modest. I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. I just know I want to do it with you.”

“Not with my mother and two dozen guests downstairs. Have you no decorum?” But Draco was smiling, teasing, and Harry looked exasperated and fond, and when Draco cupped Harry’s jawin his hands and leaned in for another kiss, Harry melted against him. It was true, what he’d said. Draco could feel rather than see or hear the way certain objects in the room began to almost quiver, as the warmth and light which seemed, bizarrely, to be emanating from Harry himself made Draco dizzy with need.

“We should stop,” he murmured, with more self-control than he thought he could muster. Harry pressed his face into Draco’ neck and groaned. Less seductive and more disappointed. “We do have a party to get through. Dinner will be served soon.”

“What happens next?” Harry said, forcibly uncurling his hands from Draco’s robes.

“Well,” Draco replied, “roast beef and turkey, potatoes, lashings of vegetables — Lissie’s French bean salad which looks like nothing special but will change your mind about eating your greens forever…”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Harry replied, sounding almost prim. “I’m betting there’s some sort of Pureblood nonsense I should know about. You know I have no idea about —_ courting_. I mean, what’s wrong with dating? I know how to do that.” He bit his lip. “In theory.”

“When you put it like that,” Draco replied, adjusting Harry’s robes before moving to his own. “Yes. And it’s not nonsense, Potter. Your Weasleys have their own traditions. I bet your Muggle relatives do, too, and Granger. Traditions are nice. But we don’t have to worry about those right now. You’ll sit by me for supper where I can poke you in the ribs if you seem likely to say anything too ridiculous.” His face softened. Harry’s expression was part determination and part exhausted resignation, but he looked like he was prepared to try, and that needed to be enough for today. “Don’t worry about the rest. We have plenty of time.”

He needn’t have worried. When Harry was in a good mood he was charming enough, and he was too Gryffindorish to be intimidated by this lot. Narcissa kept the conversation light, appropriate for the holiday, rolling her eyes if things became political, drawing the ladies into speculation about the fashion directions likely to reveal themselves at the New Year’s Eve celebrations the following week. The food was outstanding, and Harry’s hand didn’t curl around his plate once.

And every time they moved, their shoulders would brush, or their legs, and once Harry caught Draco’s ankle with his own and gave him such a heated look of _want_ that Draco was grateful for the very forgiving robes, and the way they billowed.

Maybe this hadn’t been the day for it. He couldn’t help but wish they’d been able to be alone, curled up together on the couch somewhere (preferably naked) and exploring each other, and what this could be, with no obligations and no one to bother them. But a declaration made on an auspicious date is traditional, and it mattered to Draco, no matter how he planned to mess up all the Pureblood traditions he was so fond of by getting Harry into bed before the Winter term began. He’d managed to keep his hands off Harry for this long, despite the rapid rekindling of a decades-old crush that had quickly moved to something much more serious — and if the heat of Harry’s kisses earlier were anything to go by, he didn’t seem particularly inclined to wait either.

The guests began to leave, alone or in pairs, returning to children who would be waiting to set biscuits and butterbeer out for Father Christmas, and by nine o’clock, only a small number of guests remained in the parlour, enjoying Narcissa’s less divided attention, and evidently hoping for a chance to ask about Draco’s ‘new friend’. Music played and the hearth was warm, and the overindulgence of wine had the remaining guests looking rather soporific.

Draco led Harry out to the front patio to watch the enchanted snow fall. In Narcissa wanted a white Christmas, she made one herself.

“So, on a score of, say, Sirius to your Mother, how did I do?” Harry asked, leaning against the balustrade.

“Oh, I’d say you were a solid Wesley,” Draco replied airily. “No… a little higher than that. I assume he still eats with his fingers.”

“Unlike Gregory Goyle?”

“Perhaps we should leave off taking potshots at each other’s friends until we’ve figured out what exactly we’re doing, here, Professor Potter.” Draco raised an eyebrow and rested his hands on the balustrade. He missed the peacocks. The garden wasn’t the same without them.

“Certainly, Professor Malfoy.” Harry chewed on his lip. “We must be mental. Can you really picture me at a pub with Pansy and Greg?”

“Certainly not. We have more class than that. Imagine a nice dinner somewhere. Pansy knows all the best restaurateurs in Dublin. Muggle and Wizard alike.”

“Then can you picture meeting me and Ron at a pub?” Harry laughed, but there wasn’t a lot of mirth in it.

“If the Weasel can behave, so can I.” Draco turned, then. Snow had caught in Harry’s hair, and on the shoulders of his robe. “I could even learn his name, if I put some effort into it. Write it on a bit of parchment for me and I’ll look at it each day,” he said, reaching out to run his fingertips over Harry’s shirt where his robes parted. He met Harry’s eyes, wide and green and hungry. “I didn’t say this would be easy. Or that we’d figure everything out overnight. Your question has to be, is it worth it? Tell me, Harry — do you want me?”

Harry swallowed hard, and his gaze shifted to Draco’s mouth, and away again.

Draco moved closer. “Do you want me enough to work for it? Fight for it? Thumb your nose at those tossers at the Prophet, stand up for yourself in front of your friends and mine, and for once in your life take something you want?”

“I want you,” Harry said, evenly, but there was something vaguely threatening about his tone which made Draco’s cock twitch, and the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He stepped in front of Harry, hands on the balustrade on either side of his hips.

“Then prove it,” he said.

Draco hadn’t actually intended for that to be Harry’s cue to pull him in close and kiss him like that, hard and biting and insistent, getting annoyed when he couldn’t find somewhere for his fingers to get at Draco’s skin. Very satisfactory, Draco thought, as he pressed closer.

“If you’re going to paw at me, perhaps we should take this elsewhere,” Draco said.

“Is this outfit of yours all in one piece?” Harry growled back. “Or is it finished with a sticking charm of some sort? There’s _no gaps_.”

“Harry,” Draco said.

“Oh, go ahead and tell me we can’t do this until the third full moon of the year, or something, go on. You started this.”

“I’d prefer to at least do it somewhere we’re less likely to be observed by Mother’s very sophisticated guests. Or Mother,” he added, though in truth he thought she would probably just silently slip upstairs to the library and start enquiring about wedding venues in June. He groaned and he felt Harry’s sharp little teeth in his lower lip, and his hips shifted forward.

“Get your fingers out of my hair, Potter,” he said, summoning up all the willpower he could locate (there was damnably little) and pulling away, just a little.

Harry froze.

Draco sighed.

Get us out of here,” he said. “Show me how you tear those wards into pieces. This time, because you want to be with me. Show me.”

And then the world was sucked into nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I slowed down -- I got myself sucked into writing another fic. I hope you'll read it xoxo

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [fuckyoupbk](http://fuckyoupbk.tumblr.com).


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